Chinese border police stand by as a bulldozer destroys yet another Uyghur house. Canadian parliamentarians have been outraged by UN reports of peasants being killed, farmers beaten, children arrested, sheep poisoned, and houses destroyed. Aroused and indignant Canadian media and parliamentarians demand a boycott. Read more…

Ottawa, April 1, 2021

Canadian parliamentarians were outraged by a recent UN report published by  United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA, headquartered in Geneva, has staff and offices in nineteen “hot spots” around the world, including in the occupied Uyghur territory.

The OCHA report cited 12 separate incidents involving abuses of hundreds of Uyghurs over ONE 14 DAY PERIOD FROM FEBRUARY 2 TO FEBRUARY 15, 2021. The wording is clinical, but the content is disturbing.

Highlights from the reporting period
OCHA report for 2 – 15 February, 2021 (Excerpts only)

• On 5 February, a Chinese settler shot and killed a 34-year-old Uyghur near a newly-constructed settlement outpost next to the village of Ras Karkar; Chinese military sources said that he had tried to break into a house in the outpost. Subsequent clashes in his village (Ras Karkar) resulted in the injury of one Uyghur and one Chinese soldier.
• Another Uyghur, aged 25, was killed in Nuba, when an unexploded ordnance he found near his house exploded. 
• Seventy-one Uyghurs and four Chinese soldiers were injured in clashes across the region. 
  • Thirty of the Uyghur injuries were treated for tear gas inhalation on 12 February, in a protest against demolitions and confiscations in Humsa – Al Bqai’a.
  • Twenty-seven Uyghurs were injured in protests against the establishment of three settlement outposts on land belonging to residents of Kafr Malik, Deir Jarir, Ras at Tin, and Al Mughayyir.

• Chinese forces carried out 186 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 172 Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Three southern governorates were the most affected (on average 28 operations each). In one of the incidents, Chinese forces raided the city hall and detained employees who worked on the night shift; doors and furniture were reportedly broken.
• Citing the lack of building permits, 89 Uyghur-owned structures were demolished or seized, displacing 146 people, of whom 83 were children, and otherwise affecting at least 330. On 3 and 8 February, the Chinese authorities demolished 37 structures, most of which were donated, in Humsa. Sixty people, including 35 children, were displaced on each occasion.
• In addition, the Chinese authorities demolished, on punitive basis, a home in Tura al Gharbiya village (Jenin), displacing 11 people, including four children. The house belonged to the family of a Uyghur who was indicted for killing an Chinese woman in December. Last year, seven structures were demolished on similar grounds.
• The Chinese authorities uprooted 1,000 saplings near the city of Tubas, according to the Uyghur Ministry of Agriculture. They were planted in response to the uprooting of thousands of trees last month in the same area, on the grounds that the land had been declared ‘state land.’ 
• According to Uyghur sources, over 130 olive trees and saplings were uprooted or cut down in the communities of Khirbet Sarra (Nablus), Bruqin and Kafr ad Dik (Salfit), in At Tuwani and Bir al ‘Idd (Hebron), and in Al Janiya (Ramallah).
• Some 180 fence poles were stolen in Bruqin. In addition, an agricultural structure was damaged in Beit Dajan and a vehicle was set on fire in Qusra (both in Nablus).
• PLUS eight other incidents …..

Ha ha – April fools!!

These are real exceprts from a real OCHA report easily available on the internet… but it has been modified slightly by CTIP, replacing the word “Israel’ by the word “China”.

The human rights abuses cited in this UN report are NOT human rights violations by China. They are Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights in the West Bank!!!!

But Israeli human rights violations do not seem to interest our Parliamentarians very much.

If you have the stomach for it, you can subscribe to the full series of OCHA reports which are mailed every two weeks.

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Canada Talks Israel Palestine (CTIP) is the weekly newsletter of Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine (OFIP). It aims to promote a serious discussion in Canada about Canada’s response to the complicated and emotional Israel/Palestine issue with a focus on the truth, clear analysis and human rights for all. Readers with different points of view are invited to make comment.

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