‘It’s a slap in the face’, says Uyghur Dutch student Alerk Ablikim (22). ‘Genocide is being committed against our people, our culture is being eradicated, and yet, the Uyghur cross-country skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang was one of the athletes chosen to light the Olympic flame in Beijing. This is China’s way of showing the world it doesn’t care about criticism: “We do whatever we want”. It’s extremely painful. The Netherlands should have boycotted the Games. This is a celebration during a genocide.’
That is exactly what it is, according to the global and comparative perspectives student. ‘Not only are many Uyghurs being detained in concentration camps, but mass sterilisation is being carried out on Uyghur women. This means that our people will die out within a few generations.’
On Wednesday, Ablikim and assistant professor and China expert Casper Wits are organising a meeting at the Wijnhaven building about the human rights violations in the Chinese province Xinjiang. They want to discuss the subject with as many students and staff members as possible.
The Netherlands wouldn't dare
‘The Netherlands couldn’t even muster the courage to declare a diplomatic boycott’, says Ablikim about the Olympics. ‘The king is not going, but that’s because of Covid. The attitude shown by the Netherlands has struck hard at the Uyghur community. The argument used to be that this country is too small to take a stand. But now, the Netherlands will not even follow other countries.’
‘They’re too afraid to say that they’re not going on grounds of principle’, Wits adds. ‘Unlike other countries, such as the US, the UK, Belgium, Lithuania and Australia that did say that.’
The Games themselves aren’t even that significant, according to Wits. ‘For example, in 2020, Germany and the Scandinavian countries introduced laws to restrict the import of products made through Uyghur forced labour.’
The Netherlands did not. ‘Sigrid Kaag, former Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, laconically brushed that aside. The Netherlands is always lagging behind. Ethical and moral considerations are given secondary priority in its relationship with China. This permeates through to the rest of society, including the world of academics.’ (see box)
Wits calls for more attention to the human rights violations. ‘What is happening there is so terrifying that, as an academic, you can no longer justify not taking a position on the subject.’ In 2020, research institute Clingendael published a report on the influence of the Chinese government on Dutch higher education. ‘The key problem lies is self-censorship among experts. They’re afraid to lose their contacts in China. What I want is to put all my cards on the table. I’ll accept the risk of being thwarted.’
Thwarted
Ablikim’s parents divorced when he was very young. In 2007, he and his mother fled to the Netherlands, while his father stayed behind. ‘He’s a well-known author and publisher. I lost contact with him in early 2016.’ Because of his position in society, he was forced to become a member of the communist party and was no longer allowed to have contact with his refugee son.
‘When I arrived in the Netherlands, nobody knew of the Uyghurs’ existence. I always had to explain.’ He still encounters misconceptions. ‘Uyghurs are not, as is often claimed, a Chinese Muslim minority. We’re not a Chinese, but a Turkic people. It’s true that some of us are Muslim, but it’s a diverse society that also includes Buddhists and atheists. We’re only a minority when you look at the whole of China, but not in our own region.’
For most of the Uyghur refugees, it’s almost impossible to obtain information about their relatives who stayed behind. Moreover, doing so could put them in danger. ‘Contacting people abroad is a reason to be put in a camp.’
Safe source
Fortunately, Ablikim had a relatively safe source of information. ‘My uncle lived in Kazakhstan and in 2017, I heard from him that my father had been imprisoned in a concentration camp. He had been arrested along with his sister.’
Ablikim only received information about his father on a very sporadic basis. ‘In 2020, I was sent a TikTok video. The video showed a table full of food, with Uyghur men sitting at it. They were singing.’ The camera panned along the table. ‘They were well-known Uyghurs; musicians, poets and authors. Suddenly, I saw my father on the screen. He was looking reasonably well, he wasn’t skinny. But I noticed that he had lost a lot of hair. It looked like the men were doing well but it might as well have been propaganda.’
It was the first sign of life in a long time. ‘I was very happy with that.’ But it is not clear how his father is doing now or where he is. ‘Last year, my uncle in Kazakhstan died of Covid, and so I lost my only source of information.’
Meanwhile, Ablikim became increasingly involved in the Uyghur cause. ‘It’s dangerous, but it’s worth it. I’m now the political secretary of the youth branch of the organisation Free Uyghur! and for GroenLinks in The Hague, I’m at the bottom of the party list as a vote magnet.’ During the opening of the Olympic Games, his party held a protest at the Chinese Embassy in The Hague. ‘We placed a street sign with the name of the missing Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti on it.’ Wits was also present.
The Chinese government is displeased with Ablikim’s activities. ‘A few months ago, my Instagram account was hacked.’ And more attempts have been made to thwart him. ‘I was on the train when I received a phone call from a protected number. I picked up and, in the background, I heard a man shouting in Chinese. For a second, I thought it was my father, but I soon realised that it wasn’t him. After a few seconds, I could hear panting in the foreground. It was a scary phone call that kept me on my toes for weeks.’
Threatened
The timing made it even more suspicious: it was right after a meeting of a group of Uyghurs with the then US ambassador. Because there were no Chinese present, questions arose as to how China could know who had been at that meeting. ‘You start to doubt your own community’, says Ablikim. ‘It’s very upsetting.’ Wits: ‘We want to establish a contact point at the municipal level for people who are intimidated or threatened by their home country, because that doesn’t just happen to Uyghurs.’
Ablikim hopes to involve as many people in the discussion as possible. ‘We should talk about the Uyghur situation more often here at the university.’
Even within his programme, there is friction sometimes. ‘During my first year, there was a Chinese exchange student in our group chat who constantly posted propaganda. Nobody responded to that, until he claimed that no one had died during the student protest at Tiananmen Square – which, of course, is nonsense. Then, a huge argument erupted.’ What followed was an ‘enormous discussion in the group chat, during which Ablikim ‘was put under fire’ by this student. ‘That is when I left the group chat.’
This is why we ‘need to create a safe environment for everyone’, he says. ‘Not just for Uyghurs and Tibetans, but also for Chinese students and employees. I’ve also made Chinese friends here.’
The Uyghur Human Rights Crisis: A Conversation
Wednesday February 23rd, 17.15
Wijnhavengebouw (2.02), The Hague.
Recently, NOS revealed that professors of the Cross-cultural Human Rights Centre (CCHRC) of the Vrije Universiteit (VU), an institute that researches human rights and accepted money from the Chinese government to do so, minimise the situation of the Uyghurs.
‘This is one of the biggest moral issues of the moment’, says Wits.
‘The silence within the academic community regarding this issue is deafening. The fact that the VU chooses to accept payment for whitewashing Chinese propaganda about the Uyghurs is the most shameless example of that. Fortunately, no such incidents have occurred in Leiden.’
‘Uyghurs live in constant fear’, says Ablikim. ‘And there are doubts as to whether Dutch society is willing to do anything about it. This also applies to Uyghur students. If I were a student at the VU, I would probably be too afraid to do research on China. Because people like Peter Peverelli, a professor who denies the genocide, work there. Would I have dared to follow his lecture? The VU also didn’t do anything about the situation until the NOS reported on it.’
The VU has now suspended its funding and an investigation will be carried out. ‘Everyone at the VU knew what was going on’, says Wits. Ablikim: ‘If the university really wanted to intervene, they would have done so earlier. They shouldn’t have needed an article to do it.’ Wits: As an academic community, we have the responsibility to talk about the relations with China. That way, we can prevent incidents such as those at the VU.’
But there are many more issues to consider. ‘Telecom giant Huawei, which supplies technology used to suppress the Uyghurs, sponsors research at the VU and the UvA in the field of artificial intelligence with millions of euros. What should we do about that? There is not enough attention for the moral and ethical aspects of cooperation with China.’
The Netherlands is naive, says Ablikim: ‘At Erasmus University, research was carried out using DNA taken from Uyghurs. The scientists maintain that the material was donated voluntarily, but there is also a possibility that this happened under coercion; that it was taken from camp prisoners. Maybe my father’s DNA is in there somewhere.’
Wits: ‘This concerns the entire academic community. Hundreds of Uyghur academics were purged from Chinese universities. And during the Second World War, Leiden University was itself directly involved in ethnic cleansing. That must have sent shivers down the spines of the people working here. Where is the solidarity with the missing Uyghur academics?’