By Muhammad Faisal Abdul Aziz

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia--The Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) takes note of the first hearing of the UK Uyghur Tribunal which took place from June 4-7.

The Tribunal hearing will be held on September 10-13, 2021 at Church House London, to independently and fairly investigate the issue of human rights violations and atrocities against the Uyghur ethnic group in China’s Xinjiang province.

Prior to this hearing, ABIM welcomed the efforts to set up the Uyghur Tribunal
chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice.

Sir Geoffrey Nice is an experienced Queen's Counsel (QC), having led prosecutions
for war crime offenses by former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević in BosniaHerzegovina.

The first hearing was attended by thirty witnesses and experts both physically and virtually. These witnesses testified about detention camps, oppression, forced labor, torture, sex crimes (such as rape and forced contraception), destruction of religious and cultural heritage sites, as well as other human rights violations against the Uyghur community in Xinjiang, China.

ABIM stresses that all parties, along with the international community, should support this effort as one of the measures to reveal the truth that has long been concealed and denied by the government of the People's Republic of China.

ABIM would like to emphasize that the struggle to defend the human rights of the Uyghur ethnic group is consistent with the humanitarian agenda that ABIM has highlighted on the international stage.

It is therefore our responsibility, as well as that of the international community, to jointly defend the rights and dignity of any human being from any oppression and violation.

Thus, this should not be misrepresented as a political agenda that has anything to do with anti-China or pro-Western sentiments.

Instead, it is a shared fight on the part of the international community to defend human rights, regardless of race or religion.