Update: The link below was incorrect; it has been updated (9.25pm).
Major clashes have broken out between the indigenous Uighur population of East Turkestan and the Han Chinese settlers who have been moved in or otherwise enticed to displace them; this is like Tibet, but possibly worse, insofar as the Uighurs have neither the Dalai Lama nor the world's sympathy. Why isn't this burning through the blogosphere? Why isn't this being noticed and placed on the cover of every American magazine? Somehow, Iran merits attention -- wonder why -- but a far more egregious and cruel form of oppression merits only isolated concern.
What China's government is doing to the Uighur is morally far, far worse than what the Iranian regime has visited upon its own people. Yet that story will never capture the world.
I saw it on TV and heard it on NPR, but yeah, they are too unknown to the media to care about.
Posted by: sophister | 2009.07.06 at 21:08
Haroon, you're absolutely right here, but lest anyone think that this is only a Western phenomenon, you should note that Iranian press has been tepid at best, completely silent at worst about Mother China's slaughtering of Muslims in Chinese Turkestan.
It was mocked in a pro-reform website (Ayande News), (article headlined: "Attacking Zionists, Smiling at Communists) which noted the disgraceful discrepancy between the detailed Gaza coverage and the Iranian media blackout of the Uighur slaughter.
What's the point of becoming free of Western influence if the price is heading down the road of vassaldom to China and Russia?
Posted by: Hasan Bidar | 2009.07.08 at 03:59