Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2018

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

As part of our laws, you would like to bring in some of the sanctions that you see in the United States. You'd like to see Canada extend that. What can we do in terms of addressing the stateless status of people?

[Mehmet Tohti]

As I have said, Canada should issue a public statement. This is not a human rights issue. This is beyond the scope of a human rights issue. Some scholars call it ethnic genocide. Some call it cultural genocide. Some call it collective punishment. Some call it a crime against humanity. It is not a human rights issue that we can talk about behind closed doors. A generic or general statement does not work. We have to call it whatever it is, with a name that fits the action. The United States has called it a concentration camp twice at the United Nations, as have others. The U.S. Congress did too.

As for Canada, our representative mentioned the situation twice at the United Nations. The first time was a disaster. Basically, our representative mentioned “thousands of Uighurs”. It's not “thousands”. There is a three-zero difference between “millions” and “thousands”. Just one concentration camp contains more than 8,000 people, and we have more than 250 concentration camps. We shouldn't shy away from calling it whatever it is and issuing a public statement, just like the European Union, the United Nations and the U.S.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I'm afraid we're out of time.

We will now go into the second round, which is a five-minute round. We will begin with Mr. Tabbara.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Chair. Thank you for being here to chair our meeting for our first topic of discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Tohti, for being here, and thank you to the audience behind you for being here and bringing a voice to your community.

I want to ask you about China's leadership, going back a couple of years to the change in leadership. Has that affected the Uighurs more? Has there been less suppression? Could you go through a certain period of leadership, going back 15 or 20 years or more?

[Mehmet Tohti]

I don't remember who said it, but I remember the phrase.

“China is a sleeping tiger“—or a giant—“When we wake it up, it will be a disaster for the world.” Some famous person said that.

China has already had the ambition of controlling the world for a long time. China considers itself the centre, and other people as barbaric. That is part of China's 2000-year-old culture. If you look at 2000 years of China's history, you'll see that China expanded continuously, without losing any territory. The British empire lost. The Ottoman empire lost. The Soviet empire lost. But for 2000 years, China did not lose an inch because China never makes a clear border agreement with other countries. When it gets stronger, it claims territory. That is exactly what is going on in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and other countries.

If you look at a Chinese textbook today, you'll see that there is a famous phrase saying that Genghis Khan united all of China. What does it mean? The areas where Genghis Khan went are supposed to belong to China. That's what it means. Now China is in a stronger financial situation, so it is spending money, and lending money to countries it knows cannot afford to pay.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

In particular, was there more violence toward the Uighurs, or more oppression, specifically in terms of past leadership, or has it been consistent?

[Mehmet Tohti]

Xi Jinping's policy is extreme, but other leaders' policies were also oppressive. I have to say that. There is opposition to China's leader Xi Jinping in China. The opposition is not about what he is doing or his goals. The opposition says, “Why are you making everything out of box? We should pursue under the table, smoothly, without waking up other people. Now you are waking up the western countries and their opposition,” and this and that.

As long as China's ambitious plan is there to colonize the world—they are boss of the world—if not this leader, it will be the next leader. It will be the same policy. As a western democracy, we should be afraid if China has already begun to export its style of authoritarianism to neighbouring countries or elsewhere, to replace our western values. That should alarm us.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My next question is about journalists. Are journalists able to access densely populated Uighur communities, or is it still relatively inaccessible to journalists? Have they been attacked, or have they been shunned from being in certain communities?

[Mehmet Tohti]

There is no access for journalists so far. The last journalist I saw that set foot in the Uighur region was Emily Feng from the Financial Times.

I have spoken with her a number of times. She is of Chinese ethnic origin and has a little bit more leverage to talk with the officials, but for western journalists, I don't think so.

The Globe and Mail representative in Beijing is Nathan VanderKlippe, and I had an exchange with him. It is tough. So far, there are no western journalists who have set foot there.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sweet, for five minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Tohti, thank you very much for your testimony.

Are there other Muslim Turkic minorities being persecuted along with the Uighurs?

[Mehmet Tohti]

Yes, the ethnic Kazakhs, the Kurds, and the native people of East Turkestan. It is not only the Uighurs, they are part of this persecution as well.

The Kazakhs and Kurds fled to neighbouring stan countries. Some of them managed to escape and saved their lives. Many of them still languish in concentration camps.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You used a term that I've heard before from Dr. Lobsang Sangay from the Tibetan government in exile. He said you have a cultural genocide going on.

Is China using a strategy that is similar to the Tibetan autonomous region? Is China transporting Han Chinese in to make sure it has domination in the area? Is China moving them in by the trainloads, by the busloads?

[Mehmet Tohti]

In 1950, when the Chinese communist army came to the region under the command of Wang Zhen, there were about 2,500 to 3,000 Chinese in the whole area. Now even the Chinese government says it is 46% Chinese. If you include paramilitary forces, or some seasonal workers, the overall Chinese population could be more than Uighurs.

More Uighurs are now in jail, and opportunities are only provided to the Chinese, who are coming. Uighur girls are forced to marry the Chinese. There are home-stay programs for Uighur families by Chinese officials with a 24-hour watch. Basically, the Chinese are the dominant power at every level of life, not only at the government level.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Another group that the People's Republic of China has been notorious at persecuting are the Falun Gong. We have accumulated quite a bit of evidence. In fact, we've had two rounds of testimony here by two gentlemen, David Matas and David Kilgour, regarding organ harvesting.

Has that been happening to Uighurs as well?

[Mehmet Tohti]

Actually, organ harvesting first started with the Uighurs in China because, more or less, they are supporters of Falun Gong either secretly in government or in civil society. So if anything happens, immediately people make it public. For that reason, they have more access to information, and access to information is not that strict for ordinary Chinese citizens. For Uighurs and Tibetans, it is absolutely a no-right zone.

For that reason, for example, now hundreds of thousands of Uighurs have been transported to mainland China, totally separated from their families, totally separated from their cultural roots. What is the consequence waiting for them? There is organ harvesting for hundreds of thousands.

The Chinese government doesn't hesitate to turn Uighurs' bodies into money. Instead of feeding them three times or twice, their organs are used and the bodies are burned in a crematorium. That is the practice of the Chinese government. Organ harvesting is more severely under-reported for Uighurs than for any other people in China.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Could you tell me specifically who are the most important people we would like to see here who we could question? Are there witnesses who could give us specific evidence to connect the Chinese persecution of Uighurs and the Chinese persecution of Rohingyas? Could you name that person? Also, could you name any other person we should make sure we hear from in regard to the best kind of witness testimony to authenticate all of what you've told us?

[Mehmet Tohti]

For the best information about Uighur persecution and the Rohingya persecution in China, I can work on that and I will provide you with the name of an expert, not the media report. I can do that.

For organ harvesting, I can provide the name right now. Dr. Enver Tohti. He lives in the U.K. and he was a practising doctor before, and he has witnessed the organ harvesting of Uighurs. So there are a number of well-qualified witnesses to testify on that.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair]

If you could send that list to the clerk, we'll make sure that's distributed to the committee.

[Mehmet Tohti]

Sure, I will.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Now we have Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all once again.

Mr. Tohti, can you explain to us what these maps mean, in light of the briefs that you've submitted to us?

[Mehmet Tohti]

There is China's belt and road initiative, proposed in 2014 by President Xi Jinping, owned by President Xi Jinping, and endorsed by President Xi Jinping. It is called a 21st-century Marshall Plan. It runs from the east coast of China all the way north to Moscow, to Europe and the Middle East, and to the southern part of Europe and Africa. There are four land lines, land corridors, as they are called, and also the Maritime Silk Road.

The Maritime Silk Road connects two points. One is Myanmar, stretching to the south. The second one connects to the Maritime Silk Road and the land corridor, and that's the Pakistani Gwadar port, which stretches from East Turkestan to Pakistan, because we have a border, and in the middle is the Central Asian land line. It covers Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, and the northern line stretches to Moscow.

The central part is the region of the Uighurs. The southern part is Tibet. The northwestern part is the Uighur region, what we call East Turkestan and China calls Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Because China wants to achieve this 21st-century Marshall Plan, they are not hesitating to eliminate whatever they see as obstacles. The majority of Turkic and Muslim people are silent on the atrocities of the Uighurs, because they are expecting some kind of financial share from the promised Chinese investment.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

You mentioned that other countries that are part of this may not be speaking out because they're expecting financial gain. I understand there are some states that have spoken out. Can you elaborate a little bit on those countries that have spoken out?