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opinion
thecurrent
10 March 11, 2020
Madison Farnsworth| Opinion Editor TheCurrent.Opinion@mail.greenriver.edu www.thegrcurrent.com
Internment Camps in China are Commiting Atrocities By: Madison Farnsworth Opinion Editor
Editorial
The Chinese prison camps that are detaining thousands of Uyghurs, Kazaks, Kyrgyz, and other ethnic Muslim groups are unethical and dehumanizing. It started back in 2017 with the Chinese government insisting that all Uyghurs be put into what they call a “re-education camp.” However other countries quickly caught on to what was really happening and have called out the Chinese government. The Chinese government claims that they are imprisoning these people for protection against terrorism, but if the world has learned anything from history, it is that putting ethnic and religious minorities in prison camps is legally and morally wrong in more ways than one. The camps are officially called “Vocational Education and Training Centers.” The Chinese government is labeling these camps as “Re-education camps” and its aim is to “re-educate” the ethnic Muslims of official Chinese customs, like speaking and writing Mandarin.
In reality the camps are only trying to erase the millennia of culture that the ethnic Muslims have and replace it with what is seen as the acceptable culture, the Chinese culture. The prison camps should be seen as major red flags rose from the Chinese government. If this is how they end up treating people whose own separate culture is different than the traditional Chinese culture then that obviously says something about how China regards basic human rights. This should be taken as a major human rights violation on China’s part. It is unjust cruelty against the ethnic Muslim groups these camps are affecting. They do not deserve this kind of treatment for just living their own lives and being who they are. According to BBC news, startling documents were recently leaked which expose the immoral treatment of minority groups housed in the Chinese prison camps. Quotes from the document make the camps sound like an Orwellian nightmare come true: ‘Increase discipline and punishment of behavioral violations… Never allow escapes…. [Ensure] full video surveil-
lance of dormitories and classrooms free of blind spots’. The Chinese government passed this off as fake news, but even more evidence points toward the emotional torture that takes place at these camps. Aibota Serik, a Chinese Kazakh, reported to BBC that her father was taken away to these camps without a trial and she is yet to hear back from him. Innocent families are being torn apart because of these camps. Parents are getting split from their children. Spouses and siblings are getting separated from each other. It is a tragic mess that is ruining the lives of families. So far 23 governments have condemned the Chinese government and urged for the closing of the camps. On the other side, 54 governments have supported the Chinese Government and commended the government for their “protection” of human rights. It does seem strange that the majority of the governments that support the camps in China come from vastly Muslim centered countries. It would be assumed that these governments would be against China’s ruling; however that is not the case.
What the United States government has done so far in order to put a stop to China’s ways is several different senators addressing the issue to the American people by making various statements for the past two years. Another thing that the government has done was pass two separate acts; the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in 2018 and the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in 2019. It does feel as if there is nothing much the other world governments can do in order for the Chinese government to put a stop to the camps; however being informed about the camps in the first place is the right step to take. It is comforting to hear that other world governments are stepping up when it comes to dealing with the prison camps. However the Chinese government is a global powerhouse and it might end up taking more effort from the other governments in the long run in order for the camps to be shut down and stop existing altogether in the future.
Editorials reflect the opinions of the entire editing staff of The Current.
The Unnecessary Panic Revolving Around Novel Coronavirus By: Dee Senaga Layout Designer Since our Editorial about the virus, the panic around both the nation, and the world, has only gotten worse. As of writing this, the death toll from COVID-19 sits at 3800 globally, 28 in the United States, and all but 5 of those being from Washington State. Surely, we as a state should be the most concerned in the US about this viral infection. Think about it this way though; 28 people is smaller than the average elementary school class. 28 people is a number you expect to come to a meeting in an office. And these 28 people are all elderly, health condition having individuals. 28, in a state whose population sits at 7.5 million. That’s 0.00029333333333333% of our population as a state. Compare those numbers with the death toll of the current Influenza season. Nationwide, Influenza has caused 20,000 deaths, 74 of those in Washington State. Why are we not experiencing a similar outcry to our fear of COVID-19? The difference is that this number is completely normal. In fact, in Washington, this number is lower than usual. It remains, however, that Influenza is actively more dangerous than
COVID-19, but is not receiving even remotely the same concern. A concern that has absolutely devastated grocery store shelves across the globe; the mass hysteria around COVID-19 is out of control. Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, gloves, and face masks are all in high demand and limited supply. Online suppliers such as Amazon are running out of the alcohol wipes that those who need to do self-administered injections require for their health and safety. Toilet paper has become an item to fight over in the aisle. Urgent care centers, Emergency Rooms, and hospitals alike are all having their stock raided by those who fear for their health. The problem here is not that people are buying these items for their safety, but rather, that they are hoarding it to the extent that those who are not fast enough, or wealthy enough, cannot have any access to them. Secondarily, this hysteria is often grounded in racist undertones, whether the purveyors know it or not. Since the first reports of this outbreak, Asian-Americans (not just Chinese-Americans) have been under scrutiny and feared for their potential relation to COVID-19. Asian-run businesses have lost massive amounts of money across
the nation, from restaurants to medicinal stores, even non-food related businesses. Asian celebrations have been cancelled, people on the streets been avoided or given dirty looks, and their food insulted. Not only is it unfair to blame citizens who haven’t even been near China as a country in the past year at least, it’s unfair to blame and be scared of any Asian person for an illness that, apart from not being their fault, is not even inherent to them as Asian people. If anyone is to blame for this illness, it would have to fall down to the Chinese government and their current laws on meat production. For a quick history lesson, in 1959 the Great Chinese Famine was caused by food production being kept solely as a government based practice. To fix it, the Chinese government started allowing private farming, which was a huge success for the population. Amongst the private farming, exotic animals were starting to be farmed as well, and the government protected this and turned the other way to practices. To be clear, it is not the majority of citizens that eat these exotics either. It often falls down to those rich enough to buy. These animals, along with every other livestock, get brought to
wet markets or markets where live animals are butchered on site for maximum freshness. The cages are often stacked in a way that forces animals on the bottom to live in the waste of the ones above, which spreads disease between animals, and inevitably, to humans beings. Novel coronavirus is a zoonotic, or from animal, disease. This is the process that it gets transferred to humans, and despite the outcry, it remains on a small scale. The citizens of China, and the various Asian people around the world, are not to blame, and should not be feared by any definition of the word whatsoever.
Joint Base San Antionio
This article is soley intended to inform readers about the current data and information surrounding the Novel coronavirus . It is not to say that we should not continue to keep ourselves safe by maintaining good hygiene, but rather, that the public feelings and actions relating to the virus are not backed by the data. Keep yourself safe and healthy , but additionally, let those around you do the same by letting them have the same supplies that are being hoarded. We all need to cooperate as a species in order to fight against the virus, which has the capability to cause a global pandemic.
