MPs vote to label China’s persecution of Uighurs a genocide
The Canadian parliament voted to label Chinese policies and actions towards Uyghur Muslims in northwestern Xinjiang province a genocide. Is this the right term? Former CSIS Intelligence Analyst Phil Gurski talks to Concordia University’s Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies to unpack these issues.
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About my guest Kyle Matthews
Kyle is the Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University. He joined MIGS as Lead Researcher of the Will to Intervene Project in 2008 and was appointed Senior Deputy Director in 2011. At Concordia he founded the Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership project as well as the Digital Mass Atrocity Preventing Lab, which works to counter online extremism and study how social media platforms are being used as a weapon of war.
His work focuses on human rights, international security, the Responsibility to Protect, global threats, and social media and technology, and global cities. He works closely with the Canadian All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and has advised Members of Parliament on issues related to international peace and security.
About the host Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. and Programme Director for the Security, Economics and Technology (SET) hub at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute (PDI). He worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation.
From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East.
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5 replies on “Kyle Matthews: Is what China is doing to the Uyghurs ‘genocide’?”
It is erroneous to claim China’s current genocidal policies were triggered as an reaction to the so-called “Islamic affiliated attacks” in 2000’s (in fact many Uyghurs believe these attacks were orchestrated by China). PRC (People’s Republic of China) has invaded East Turkistan in 1949 and hence genocide did not stop for a moment. At the time Uyghurs were accused of “being a Capitalist stooges”, “Soviet Puppets”, “leftists” and etc The political discourse have been shifting with the political winds…
Thank you for your clarification. I did not know that Kayum.
Just visualize for minute: one Uyghur man taking a knife and stabbing 32 Han Chinese to death in front of one of the busiest train station in China where million people commute daily with heavy police presence. question to ask at the least, did those Han Chinese wait their turn to be stabbed to death? they did not have ability to runaway or come together to subdue that one man?
fact is that, after servicing that news with huge sensation, we have not heard anything back from the Chinese media, whether that Uyghur man has been trail or sentenced to death or what happened. no news at all. why?
it was a time when there has been power struggle between new President XI and his predecessor Hu Jintao. so much ugly things were taking place there. however that flashy, sensational news was enough to change the conversation in China. “Uyghur Terrorist”. This is not that difficult to realize if you one gram brain over your shoulder.
the most of the official China’s media presentation and news feed on “Uyghur terrorism” or “ETIM” or other “Jihadist connection” were nothing but the excuse for the justification of its brutality against Uyghurs. if Uyghurs have that “terrorism” tendency, then you have to ask, why no incident so far occurred at anywhere around the world attacking against Chinese people, despite the families members, children or direct relatives of many Uyghurs were taken into concentration camps, slave labour or serving lengthy imprisonments? why they are only peacefully protesting China’s government with their testimonies and public gathering? this should be the time for them to do the worst, as they lost hope and lost all their family, right?
Well done, very informative conversation. In my opinion, the term ‘genocide’ fits.
Thanks Tova!