Uyghur
China: Teacher shares her 'horrific' experience of Uyghur detention camp
Beijing: Qelbinur Sidik, who was assigned the task of teaching at a Chinese government-run detention center in Xinjiang, has said she has witnessed 'horrific tragedy' in the centres.
"During the time I was teaching there, I witnessed horrific tragedy," she told CNN.
Young detainees who arrived at the centers "fit, robust and bright-eyed" quickly sickened and weakened, she told the American news channel.
From her classroom in the basement of one camp, Sidik said she could hear screams.
When she asked about their cries, she claims a male policeman told her that detainees were being tortured.
Speaking about her experience, Sidik said while she was giving her first lesson, she turned to the chalkboard only to hear the detainees behind her crying.
"I turned slightly, I saw their tears falling down their beards, the female detainees were crying loudly," she told CNN.
She also revealed how women are tortured in the camps.
"When (male guards) were drinking at night, the policemen would tell each other how they raped and tortured girls," Sidik told CNN from her new home in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Canada’s House of Commons adopted a non-binding motion calling on the Trudeau government to declare the actions of the Chinese authorities against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province a genocide.
Parliament adopted the motion in a 266-0 vote on Monday with Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau abstaining on behalf of the government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and more than 60 members of the governing Liberal Party were absent from the vote.
Canada’s Conservative Bloc Quebecois, New Democrat and Green parties all voted for the motion as did all five independent parliamentarians.
Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole, whose party initiated the vote, criticized Trudeau for his absence from the vote and called on the government to respect the will of Parliament as well as reiterated his appeal for boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.
However, the unenforceability of the appeal and Trudeau's previous comments suggest that further action on the motion is unlikely. Trudeau has previously cautioned against the liberal use of the word "genocide," saying that it is a term guided by strict international guidelines and that misuse of it would weaken the designation.
Garneau said that Canada takes allegations of genocide very seriously but echoed Trudeau’s calls for an international investigation into the matter.
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