新疆與世界--迫害維吾爾族是危害人類罪

 

Xinjiang and the world 新疆與世界

The persecution of the Uyghurs is a crime against humanity 迫害維吾爾族是危害人類罪

It is also the gravest example of a worldwide attack on human rights

這也是全世界侵犯人權的最嚴重案例

The first stories from Xinjiang were hard to believe. Surely the Chinese government was not running a gulag for Muslims? Surely Uyghurs were not being branded “extremists” and locked up simply for praying in public or growing long beards? Yet, as we report in this week’s China section , the evidence of a campaign against the Uyghurs at home and abroad becomes more shocking with each scouring of the satellite evidence, each leak of official documents and each survivor’s pitiful account.

來自新疆的第一個故事令人難以置信。中國政府肯定不是為穆斯林建造古拉格勞改營嗎？維吾爾族人肯定不是只因在公共場合祈禱或留長鬚，而被冠上「極端主義分子」並遭拘禁？然而，正如我們在本周的中國專欄文章的報導，隨著每次細察衛星證據、每次官方文件外洩，和每個倖存者令人憐憫的敘述，在國內外迫害維吾爾族的證據變得更令人震驚。

In 2018 the government pivoted from denying the camps’ existence to calling them “vocational education and training centres”—a kindly effort to help backward people gain marketable skills. The world should instead heed Uyghur victims of China’s coercive indoctrination. Month after month, inmates say, they are drilled to renounce extremism and put their faith in “Xi Jinping Thought” rather than the Koran. One told us that guards ask prisoners if there is a God, and beat those who say there is. And the camps are only part of a vast system of social control.

2018年，中國政府從否認勞改營的存在，到稱其為「職業教育和培訓中心」—一種善意的努力，意在幫助落後的人們，得到市場所需的技能。世界應轉向關注遭中國強制洗腦的維吾爾族受害者。月復一月，囚犯們表示他們被軍方威脅聲明放棄極端主義，並將他們的信仰投向「習近平思想」而不是《古蘭經》。有人告訴我們，警衛詢問囚犯是否有上帝，並毆打說有的人。勞改營只是龐大的社會控制系統的一部分。

China’s 12m Uyghurs are a small, disaffected minority. Their Turkic language is distant from Chinese. They are mostly Muslim. A tiny handful have carried out terrorist attacks, including a bombing in a market in 2014 that left 43 people dead. No terrorist incidents have occurred since 2017: proof, the government says, that tighter security and anti-extremism classes have made Xinjiang safe again. That is one way of putting it. Another is that, rather than catching the violent few, the government has in effect put all Uyghurs into an open-air prison. The aim appears to be to crush the spirit of an entire people.

中國的1,200萬維吾爾族是一個很小、失落的少數民族。他們的突厥語與中文大相徑庭。他們大多是穆斯林，極少數人進行恐怖襲擊，包括2014年市集爆炸造成43人死亡。自2017年以來未再發生恐怖事件：政府表示，這證實戒備森嚴和反極端主義課程，使新疆再次安全。那只是一種說法。另一種說法是，政府不只是抓出少數暴力分子，其實是將所有維吾爾族關進露天監獄。

Even those outside the camps have to attend indoctrination sessions. Any who fail to gush about China’s president risk internment. Families must watch other families, and report suspicious behaviour. New evidence suggests that hundreds of thousands of Uyghur children may have been separated from one or both detained parents. Many of these temporary orphans are in boarding schools, where they are punished for speaking their own language. Party cadres, usually Han Chinese, are stationed in Uyghur homes, a policy known as “becoming kin”.

甚至營地外的人也須參加思想灌輸課程，任何未能滔滔不絕地頌揚中國主席面臨監禁風險，家庭必須監視其他家庭，並舉報可疑行為。新證據顯示，成千上萬維吾爾族兒童可能與一個或皆被拘留的父母分開，許多臨時孤兒都在寄宿學校，在那裡他們會因說自己的語言而受懲。黨的幹部通常是漢族，駐紮到維吾爾族的家中，這一政策被稱為「成為親人」。

Rules against having too many children are strictly enforced on Uyghur women; some are sterilised. Official data show that in two prefectures the Uyghur birth rate fell by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018. Uyghur women are urged to marry Han Chinese men and rewarded if they do with a flat, a job or even a relative being spared the camps. Intimidation extends beyond China’s borders. Because all contact with the outside world is deemed suspect, Uyghurs abroad fear calling home lest they cause a loved one to be arrested, as a harrowing report in 1843, our sister magazine, describes .

禁止有過多小孩的規定對維吾爾族婦女嚴格執行；有些人被結紮。官方數據顯示，從2015年到2018年，兩個地區的維吾爾族出生率減少超過60％。維爾族婦女被鼓勵嫁給漢族男性，實行者可得到一塊平地、一份工作甚至是一個親戚免在勞改營的獎勵。恐嚇延伸到中國境外，由於所有與外界的聯繫都被視為嫌疑犯，國外維吾爾族人害怕打電話回家，唯恐造成摯愛的人被捕，正如我們姊妹雜誌《1843》的悲慘報導所述。

The persecution of the Uyghurs is a crime against humanity: it entails the forced transfer of people, the imprisonment of an identifiable group and the disappearance of individuals. Systematically imposed by a government, it is the most extensive violation in the world today of the principle that individuals have a right to liberty and dignity simply because they are people.

維吾爾人受到迫害是危害人類罪：牽涉到人民被迫遷移，監禁可識別的團體和個體失蹤。政府有系統地加罪於人，這是當今世界上最大規模違反「凡生為人，即享自由和尊嚴的權利」的原則。

China’s ruling party has no truck with this concept of individual rights. It claims legitimacy from its record of providing stability and economic growth to the many. Its appeal to the majority may well command popular support. Accurate polling is all but impossible in a dictatorship, and censorship insulates ordinary Chinese from the truth about their rulers. But many Chinese people clearly do back their government, especially since to object is deemed unpatriotic. Awkward minorities, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, have no protection in such a system. Unbound by notions of individual rights, the regime has been determined to terrorise them into submission and force them to assimilate into the dominant Han culture.

中國執政黨不與個體權利的概念打交道。它聲稱合法性來自於向許多人提供穩定和經濟成長的記錄，它對多數人的吸引力可能有助命令大眾支持，在獨裁統治下，幾乎不可能進行準確的民意測驗，而審查制度隔絕一般中國人獲得有關他們統治者真相。但是許多中國人顯然支持政府，尤其因為若是反對，會被視為不愛國。藏族和維吾爾族等尷尬的少數民族，在這種制度中沒有保護。沒有個人權利觀念的束縛，中國政權決定恐嚇並使少數民族屈服，迫使他們融入主流的漢族文化。

China lies at the extreme of a worrying trend. Globally, democracy and human rights are in retreat. Although this began before covid-19, 80 countries have regressed since the pandemic began and only Malawi has improved, says Freedom House, a think-tank. Many people, when scared, yearn to be led to safety by a strong ruler. The virus offers governments an excuse to seize emergency powers and ban protests.

中國處於令人擔憂趨勢的極端。全球的民主與人權正在開倒車。智庫自由之家表示，儘管這從新冠疫情前就開始，但自疫病流行來已有80個國家退步，僅馬拉維有所改善。許多人在恐慌時渴望得到堅強的統治者的保護，病毒為政府提供奪取緊急權力和禁止抗議活動的藉口。

Abusive rulers often rally the majority against a minority. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, espouses an aggressive Hindu nationalism and treats India’s Muslims as if they were not really citizens. For this, he earns stellar approval ratings. So does Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, who urges the murder of criminal suspects. Hungary’s prime minister crushes democratic institutions and says his opponents are part of a Jewish plot. Brazil’s president celebrates torture and claims that his foreign critics want to colonise the Amazon. In Thailand the king is turning a constitutional monarchy into an absolute one.

腐敗的統治者常會召集多數對付少數。印度總理莫迪（Narendra Modi）擁護激進的印度教民族主義，對待印度穆斯林像非真正的公民。為此，他贏得亮眼的支持率。菲律賓的杜特蒂（Rodrigo Duterte）也是如此，他呼籲謀殺犯罪的嫌疑人。匈牙利總理粉碎民主體制，並說他的反對者是猶太人陰謀的一部分。巴西總統讚頌酷刑，並聲稱他的外國批評者想要殖民亞馬遜。在泰國，國王正在將君主立憲制轉變為絕對君主制。

How can those who value liberty resist? Human rights are universal, but many associate them with the West. So when the West’s reputation took a battering, after the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the botched war in Iraq, respect for human rights did, too. Although America has imposed targeted sanctions over the Uyghurs, the suspicion that Western preaching was hypocritical has grown under Donald Trump. A transactional president, he has argued that national sovereignty should come first—and not only for America. That suits China just fine. It is working in international forums to redefine human rights as being about subsistence and development, not individual dignity and freedom. This week, along with Russia, it was elected to the un Human Rights Council.

珍視自由的人該如何抵抗？人權是舉世皆然的，但許多人將人權與西方聯想在一起。因此在2007至2008年的金融危機和混亂的伊拉克戰爭後，西方的聲譽受重創，對人權的尊重也隨之沈淪。儘管美國已為維吾爾族實施有針對性的制裁，但在川普的領導下，人們愈來愈懷疑西方的說教是偽善的。一個交易型的總統，這（國家主權至上）在國際論壇上奏效，將人權重新定義為生存和發展，而不是個人尊嚴和自由。本周，中國與俄羅斯雙雙當選為聯合國人權理事會成員。

Start in Xinjiang 從新疆起步

Resistance to the erosion of human rights should begin with the Uyghurs. If liberals say nothing about today’s single worst violation outside a war zone, how can anyone believe their criticism of other, lesser crimes? Activists should expose and document abuse. Writers and artists can say why human dignity is precious. Companies can refuse to collude. There is talk of boycotts—including, even, of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

對人權腐蝕的抵抗應從維吾爾族開始。如果自由派人士對今天在戰區外最嚴重的侵犯事件不發一語，那麼誰還會相信他們對其他次要罪行的批評？積極分子應揭露並記錄濫權行為，作家和藝術家可高談闊論人的尊嚴為什麼珍貴，公司可以拒絕串通。有人談論抵制，甚至包括2022年的北京冬奧。

Ultimately, governments will need to act. They should offer asylum to Uyghurs and, like America, slap targeted sanctions on abusive officials and ban goods made with forced Uyghur labour. They should speak up, too. China’s regime is not impervious to shame. If it were proud of its harsh actions in Xinjiang, it would not try to hide them. Nor would it lean on smaller countries to sign statements endorsing its policies there. As the scale of the horror emerges, its propaganda has grown less effective: 15 majority-Muslim countries that had signed such statements have changed their mind. China’s image has grown darker in many countries in recent years, polls suggest: 86% of Japanese and 85% of Swedes now have an unfavourable view of the country. For a government that seeks to project soft power, this is a worry.

最終，政府將需行動。他們應向維吾爾族提供庇護，並像美國一樣，對濫權官員施加針對性的制裁，並禁止強迫維吾爾族勞動所製造的貨品。他們也應表達意見。政權對羞恥並非無動於衷。假如它為在新疆的暴行感到自豪，就不會試圖隱瞞，也不會威脅小國簽署贊同其政策的聲明。隨著倒行逆施的程度揭露，政府宣傳愈來愈無效：15個曾簽署贊同聲明的穆斯林國家改變主意。近年來，在許多國家，中國的形象愈來愈暗黑。調查顯示，如今86％的日本人和85％的瑞典人對中國觀感不佳。這對尋求塑造軟實力的政府來說是個隱憂。

Some say the West would lose too much by lecturing about human rights—China won’t change, and the acrimony will stymie talks about trade, pandemics and climate change. True, keeping human rights separate from such things is impossible, and China will try to convince other countries that moral candour will cause them economic harm. Nonetheless, liberal democracies have an obligation to call a gulag a gulag. In an age of growing global competition, that is what makes them different. If they fail to stand up for liberal values they should not be surprised if others do not respect them, either.■

有人說，西方訓斥人權問題，將損失太多。—中國不會改變，而這種針鋒相對會阻礙有關貿易、疫情和氣候變化的討論。的確，把人權與這類事情分開不太可能，中國將試圖說服其他國家，道德上的坦誠會導致經濟損害。然而，自由民主國家有義務稱古拉格為古拉格。在全球競爭日益激烈的時代，這是使他們與眾不同的原因。如果他們不能捍衛自由主義的價值觀，那麼即使其他人不尊重它們，也不必感到驚訝。 ■