dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMsimilar to some graffiti in the street near the police station in Hotan City on 30October 1999 and the arrest of a primary school student because he tore a pictureof Mao in a course book.These are just a few examples of incidences that have managed to leak outfrom East Turkistan, a closed territory under strict security measures. What canwe say about the number of those that are unheard of or unknown?IV. Violations in communicationOver the last 20 years, telecommunication devices, such as the telephoneor the Internet have been used in East Turkistan in an extremely restricted andcontrolled manner. The Chinese administration, which allows for such telecommunicationdevices to meet the needs of the state rather than that of the people,tap all phone calls and keep international calls, in particular, under control. Telephoneand Internet connections were completely severed for international callsin the East Turkistan region after the events of 5 July. Domestic communicationis under surveillance and strictly controlled. While all around the world peoplecan enjoy telecommunication devices, such as the telephone and the Internet, thepeople of East Turkistan have unfortunately been deprived of these fundamentalrights and liberties.V. Violations in educationEducation is a natural basic human right. The people of East Turkistan havebeen deprived of this right as education cannot be given under pressure or oppression,but rather only with the free will of the individual. Education is under statemonopoly in all its aspects in East Turkistan. Thus, the Chinese regime, whichsupports the idea that everything should serve the interests of the state, educatesthose “they want” in a direction that “they want” on a scale that “they want” withthe information “they want”. In other words, the regime educates people withthe mentality that “people should not obstruct our business; they should remainignorant and not create trouble for us by learning too much.” Education is free forthose who can manage to go to school only up until university. In order to specializein any given field is by no stretch of the imagination free. Only those who are400