Canada commits to taking in 10000 Uyghur refugees from 2024

Canada commits to taking in 10000 Uyghur refugees from 2024

Subject :International relations

Section: Msc

Context:

Canada’s Parliament passed a motion unanimously on Wednesday to take in 10,000 Uyghur refugees who fled China but are now facing pressure to return.

The decision builds on a February 2021 move by Canadian lawmakers to label Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in its north western Xinjiang territory as genocide.

Rights groups believe at least 1 million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in internment camps in the region, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilizing women and imposing forced labour

Uighurs:

• The Uighurs are Muslim ethnic community which speak a language close to Turkish, and are culturally and ethnically closer to Central Asia than the rest of China live in Xinjiang, the largest and most western of China’s administrative regions.
• Till recently, they were the majority in Xinjiang, but massive registered and unregistered settlements of Han Chinese and heavy troop deployments have likely changed that situation.
• Besides ethnicity and cultural dissonance, tensions are seen as rooted also in economic factors — as China’s development has lifted cities like Kashgar and Urumqi, young, qualified Han Chinese from eastern regions have come to Xinjiang, taking the most lucrative jobs and triggering resentment among the indigenous population.
• In Beijing’s official narrative, much of the Uighur terrorist violence is carried out by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group that seeks to establish an independent East Turkestan state in China.
• China has been criticized at different forums for violation of Human rights of Uighur population.