UNPO met Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen (VVD) to ask him to intervene at meetings planned for March 2008 between the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  The meetings will discuss Dutch human rights policy and relations with China – topics of particular importance to UNPO Members.

Below is an article published by UNPO:

In an attempt to rally support for the cause of the Uyghurs of East Turkestan, UNPO and a representative of the Uyghur community met with Dutch Member of Parliament, Mr. Hans van Baalen (VVD) on Monday [11 February 2008]. Mr. Van Baalen was briefed on the human rights situation in China, with a particular emphasis on women’s rights and religious freedom in the Xinjiang autonomous province, better known as East Turkestan and home of the Uyghurs.

Women’s rights in East Turkestan are often violated on a large scale, due to a policy of ethnic dilution by the Chinese government and forced transports of young Uyghur women to the East of China. Protests against such activities are hardly possible, as the Gulja Massacre of 5 February 1997 demonstrated. On that occasion, hundreds of demonstrators were beaten, detained, and even killed in the aftermath of this peaceful demonstration, which was commemorated by UNPO on 3 February 2008 in Amsterdam.

Furthermore, Mr. Van Baalen was updated on the lack of religious freedom in East Turkestan. The Muslim Uyghurs of East Turkestan suffer significant repression, as they are not able to appoint their own imams and many of them were unable to conduct the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca and one of the fundamental duties of a Muslim – in 2007 due to the confiscation of Uyghur passports by the Chinese authorities.

Mr. Van Baalen, who is known to be a concerted advocate for human rights, has a track record of supporting the plight of many suppressed groups within China. Mr. Van Baalen reiterated the dire condition in which many minorities in China live and stressed the continued threat from China under which, for example, the Taiwanese and Tibetan populations have to live. He also insisted that human rights should be seen independently and not as part of a bargain or trade-off between business or profit and human rights. Mr. Van Baalen indicated that he is aware of the situation of human rights in China, but that reports like the one from UNPO shock him every time he hears them: “[The situation in China is] more repressive than most of us can imagine”.

Given his capacity as member of the Dutch Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, UNPO requested Mr. Van Baalen to bring up the above mentioned issues during the debate of the Standing Committee on 11 March 2008, when it discusses Dutch Human Rights policy, as well as on 25 March 2008, when the agenda topic of the Committee is China. Mr. Van Baalen stated that he will surely use the opportunity of these two debates with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Verhagen, to outline the violations of human rights in East Turkestan and to inquire where there could be a role in this for the Dutch Human Rights Ambassador, Mr. Hamburger. “Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Verhagen, has repeatedly stated that human rights are one of the vital pillars of the Dutch Foreign Policy and we will remind him of that”.

For more information on Mr. Van Baalen, please click on the link below:

Mr. Drs. Hans Van Baalen MP