China's ethnic minority dilemma : Uighurs case study

Abstract

The Uighur dilemma has been debated for quite some time already. The global media discussed what is happening in the Chinese province of Xinjiang with several political analyses and special reports being disseminated throughout the globe. The studies done on this subject has been scarce, but when combining them together in a specific mold and with a targeted objective from a pinpoint angle it delivers the needed result, which is what this research has aimed at doing. The goal was studying the material that have been done on Xinjiang according to International Law with the aim of deducing whether they amount to what can be called as “crimes against humanity” and to what extent. The events where studied also according to precedents from the cultural perspective in what was defined as “cultural genocide” from the courts of the ICTY and ICTR especially. The data were gathered through a review of the literature, mainly journals and researches, from academic sources. The events were deemed to have breached international law in the domain of crimes against humanity in several instances. The facts also matched the precedents of some cases of the ICTY and ICTR. At the end several solutions were presented to reduce the tension and alleviate the pain of the ethnic minority in question. One of the main limitations of this study is the inability to conduct any field research on the ground. We’d recommend to see more researches and studies being conducted on this subject and from different angles and perspectives to encircle the topic from all its sides in order to reach some degree of clarity.