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East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) President Dr Mamtimin Ala has raised serious concerns over China's treatment of Uyghurs following confirmation of the death of Rahile Omer, who is believed to have been the youngest known Uyghur detainee in China's concentration camps.
In a post on X, Ala said Rahile was taken into detention by Chinese authorities at the age of just 14 and that her death at the age of 23 had now been confirmed. Describing her as one innocent face among millions of Uyghurs who have allegedly been detained, disappeared or died in Chinese concentration camps, he said her story reflected the suffering of the Uyghur population. "Her face speaks, silently and solemnly, the unspeakable truth of this crime: a genocide and a crime against humanity," Ala wrote. Questioning the circumstances that led to the detention of a child, the ETGE president asked what crime a 14-year-old could possibly have committed, other than dreaming of a peaceful and secure future. He also questioned what kind of regime could consider a child a threat deserving imprisonment and death. Ala further criticised the Chinese authorities for allegedly treating innocent people as criminals irrespective of their age, gender, hopes or aspirations, simply because of their ethnic identity. Highlighting the wider suffering of Uyghur families, he questioned the fate of millions of others who, according to him, have faced detention, enforced disappearances, separation from their families and death. He also expressed concern over what he described as the international community's silence on the issue, questioning why governments and global institutions continued to remain inactive despite the allegations of genocide and human rights abuses against Uyghurs. "Why does the world continue to watch in silence, doing nothing, saying nothing, while pretending to occupy the moral high ground?" he wrote. Raising broader questions about the future of the Uyghur population, Ala questioned what kind of future Uyghurs could expect under what he described as a relentlessly cruel system. He also warned that the international community's failure to respond to such suffering raised questions about the future of global human rights and humanity. Concluding his post, the ETGE president questioned how the world could claim a moral future for itself if it remained unmoved by the suffering, alleged genocide and inhumanity faced by the Uyghur people. Rahile Omer's reported detention at the age of 14 and the confirmation of her death at 23 have once again brought attention to concerns raised by Uyghur representatives and human rights advocates over the treatment of Uyghurs in China, particularly allegations of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and deaths in custody. (ANI)
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