Pakistan, a so-called protectorate of Muslims worldwide, voted against the motion brought by the UN Human Rights Body that only wanted to discuss “China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims” while other distinguished members of OIC – Indonesia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – also voted against the motion due to alleged fear of China.

The vote was on Draft Resolution (A/HRC/51/L.6 – “Debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China”) submitted by the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom after the publication of a report by the UN Rights Office.

It took a long time for Human Rights to prepare the report. China, citing the COVID-19 excuse, delayed the UN members visiting the Uyghur region. The report depicts a horrible picture of Uyghur Muslims.

In the name of “countering terrorism and extremism” of Uyghur Muslims, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been detained in the so-called “Vocational Education and Training Centre” (VETC).

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) committed all possible atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims, which, according to Human Rights, is a severe violation of human rights.

The report describes the inhumane actions by the CCP, and some examples are: beaten with electric batons while strapped in a so-called “tiger chair”; not allowed to speak their language and practice their religion; “political teachings” as psychological torture such as memorise “red songs” and forced to sing patriotic song after patriotic song every day, as loud as possible and until it hurts, until faces become red and veins appeared on the face; forced to take pills every day which make them drowsy; guards forced women to perform oral sex; violations of reproductive rights;  Family separations and enforced disappearances; intimidations, threats, and reprisals, and so on.

The list of atrocities is dreadful and endless, given in this link for someone interested to read.

Under aggressive Chinese pressure, even the world’s topmost neutral body, the OHCHR (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), could publish the report after waiting for a long time.

Just a few minutes before the retirement of  OHCHR Commissioner Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria on 31 August 2022, the piece was published amidst the CCP’s hullabaloo.   The UN Rights Office considered severe human rights violations committed in Xinjiang that may constitute crimes against humanity.

Subsequently, the UN Rights Body wanted to discuss China’s “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang.  Unfortunately, the resolution was rejected (Yes: 17; No: 19; Abstentions: 11) in  47 member Human Right Council.

Most interestingly, the resolution was initiated chiefly by Western countries, and so-called Muslim guardians, Pakistan, and other Muslim nations either voted against the resolution or abstained.

The vote opens a pandora’s box of the Muslim world’s farcical mindset towards each other, where all Muslim leaders are highly vocal about protecting the Muslim community. Still, in reality, they appear not worried about Muslim plights worldwide.

Muslim leaders and Imams preach Muslim Ummah’s well-being, but when they get the opportunity to raise their voices against oppression of Muslims, they even fail to show a minimum level of respect to safeguard the Muslims.

The official name of Pakistan is  ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan” with the motto: “faith, unity, discipline”, whose people always take the leading role of defending Islam, but Pakistan never said a word against China for its torture of Uyghur Muslims.

Despite having no similarity in religion, culture, or language with China, Pakistan has become an “all-weather tested friend” to China. On the contrary,  Pakistan is always vocal about Muslim oppression in Kashmir and wants to condemn India at OIC’s summit for its alleged oppression of Kashmiri Muslims.

Here again, OIC countries have also failed to take decisive action. It is unlikely to succeed consensus of views on the whole Muslim community unless the Muslim world is united and consistent. If Pakistan believes “there is no friend and foe in politics”, Pakistan may regret one day not raising its voice against the oppression of Uyghur Muslims.

Similarly, other Muslim countries did not want to antagonize China due to fear of China’s economic retaliation.

For the first time, UN Rights Body wanted to put a record of China’s human rights record on the agenda. China carried out a massive lobby on the sideline against the motion especially targeting the Asian Muslim countries, and used its economic leverage successfully to dissuade the Asian countries, economically dependent on China.

The West also saw this defeat as a blow to the UN’s credibility and was disappointed by the reaction of Muslim countries.

It is undoubtedly observed that serious human right violation and indiscriminate killing of Muslims in the Rakhine State of Myanmar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, and many other places worldwide.

Most of the killings were tantamount to genocide; in some cases, the criminal investigation continued for years in Darfur, Sudan but the UN framed no formal charges yet.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the first human rights treaty on 9 December 1948. Under this convention, only three were recognized: Cambodia killing in 1975-79 by the Pol Pot regime, Rwanda in 1994, and the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.

Not only the United States but Arab countries are allegedly found to be involved in human rights violations of Muslims for which a viable agenda could not be placed in the OHCHR. However, when an opportunity was found to debate the issue, Muslim countries threw the motion into the bin.

The success of this agenda could be an opportunity to pave the way to seize the opportunity to discuss other human rights concerns in other places. Muslims Ummah missed the chance to get united, yet again.