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Comment by _iyig | Hacker News Reader

>(are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS?)

This question would be simpler to answer if China allowed foreign reporters access to the camps, cities, and provinces where (millions of) Uyghur Muslims are held, such as Xinjiang.

Could you imagine if Chinese reporters were denied to access to, for example, the state of Texas? What if plainclothes Texas Rangers stalked tourists visiting El Paso, and aggressively detained and deported anyone caught interviewing local Hispanics? That’s the type of media blackout which I understand is currently imposed on Xinjiang.

VICE News on the ground:

https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ

Foreign Policy editor, “All of my Uyghur sources are gone”:

https://youtu.be/yQLliXOk1cM

View on HN

> That’s the type of media blackout which I understand is currently imposed on Xinjiang.

I personally think the UN human rights council is at least as important, as the international media's role in fixing human rights problems is debatable. In that light:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/04/trump-administra...

as the article states:

> “They are sending a very dangerous message to other countries: that if you don’t cooperate with UN experts they will just go away. That’s a serious setback to the system created after World War II to ensure that domestic human rights violations could no longer be seen as an internal matter,” Dakwar said.

Maybe China received this message loud and clear?

My point stands: UN human rights inspectors can enter Texas whenever they choose (no formal invite required!), but not Xinjiang. They can interview anyone they meet on the street in the US, but not in many parts of China.

I'd also argue that the role of the UN Human Rights Council (whose recent illustrious members have included Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) is minuscule compared to that of the global press in terms of fomenting any actual change.

You mean they can't enter the "educational centers" in Xinjiang? Do you think they can easily enter the "detention centers" in Texas?

> I'd also argue that the role of the UN Human Rights Council (whose recent illustrious members have included Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) is minuscule compared to that of the global press in terms of fomenting any actual change.

I mean the US is also a member, torturing people and commiting war crimes around the clock. Not sure you can dismiss the UN Human Rights Council due to the deeds of some members.

Roughly 1-2 million Uyghur Muslims do not have the luxury of your equivocations, nor your freedom of expression, nor freedom. I encourage you to watch that entire VICE report I linked.

For comparison, here’s VICE News plus a bunch of reporters touring the ICE facility in El Paso:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xweqgn/we-got-cameras-ins...

I’ve been chastised before for energetic commenting on this particular topic, and we’re hardly discussing HK now, so I’ll give it a rest.

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