Say No to “Double Standards” on Counter-terrorism

For some time, a few western politicians and some unscrupulous media like the New York Times, have been hyping up the so-call issue of vocational education and training in Xinjiang.  They made wanton accusations to negate the significant achievements of governing Xinjiang in accordance with the law by the Chinese government. Regardless of representations and objections from Chinese government time and again,the U.S. Congress passed the so-called 2019 Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which distorts facts and calls white black with “human rights” as an excuse to make groundless accusations and distortions to Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang, denigrate its counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, smear China’s policies on ethnic and religious affairs, and threaten to impose sanctions to China. Moreover, it sends dreadful misleading signals to terrorist forces.

Since the 1990s, Xinjiang had suffered thousands of violent terrorist attacks, which caused the death of a large number of innocent people and immeasurable property damage. The reason is extremism that often uses religion as a cover to spread false doctrines to befog the people’s minds, deny all secular concepts and modern civilization, and spare no efforts to preach the fallacy that jihad and martyrdom help one go directly to heaven. Extremists use violent terrorist means to kill innocent people, vainly attempts to split the country and establish an extremist regime under the guise of religion.

Xinjiang has established education and training centers in accordance with laws to prevent terrorism and religious extremism from spreading. The trainees are those who were infected and deluded by religious extremism and terrorism. The vocational education and training in Xinjiang has secured trainees’ human rights and saved their lives, and prevented them from being sacrificed by terrorism. At present, all trainees have graduated and found desired jobs with comfortable income, back to a normal life. In the future, the local government will still offer training programs tailored to meet trainees’ needs and attendees are free to join or quit programs at any time. Training programs will mainly be courses of national common language, legal knowledge and vocational skills, etc.

Vocational education and training in Xinjiang has succeeded to an enormous extent and is applauded by the international community. Xinjiang has made remarkable progress in fighting terrorism and eradicating extremism, harvesting more and more “stability dividends”. No violent terrorist attacks have occurred for the past three years. Religious extremism infiltration has been effectively contained and public security in Xinjiang has notably improved. Since the end of 2018, over 1,000 foreign visitors from more than 70 groups have had sight visits to the vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang. Among them are UN officials, diplomatic envoys to China as well as representatives of religious organizations. By visiting Xinjiang on their own, people have realized the urgency, necessity, legality and rationality of anti-terrorist efforts and expressed that the vocational education and training program in Xinjiang fully conforms to the purposes and principles of the United Nations on the preemptive combat against terrorism and the protection of fundamental human rights, which is worthy of full recognition.

The freedom of religion is no excuse for religious extremism. Safeguarding human right is no protective umbrella for terrorism. These have been established as consensus of the international community. We will never accept “double standards” tinted with ideology on the assessment of Chinese government’s endeavor to fight against terrorism and salvation of extremist victims. No smear can negate the fact that Xinjiang has made progress in the cause of human rights. No slander can stop the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang from forging ahead in unity. No plot can hinder the development and prosperity of Xinjiang. The peace and stability in Xinjiang are not easily won. People’s happiness is the supreme human right. 1.4 billion Chinese people of all ethnic groups, including Uyghur people in Xinjiang, cherish our happy life and we’d like to build the human community with a common future and share happiness together with the whole world.

The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Lithuania Tribune.

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