[An Uyghur Muslim (File photo)]
New Delhi: The World Uyghur Congress has been nominated by parliamentarians from Canada and Norway for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions to human rights and shedding light on Chinese repression of the Uyghur people in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to a media report.
It's the first time the Germany-based group has been nominated for the prestigious prize, RFA reported.
China has faced intensifying international criticism for treatment of the 11 million predominantly Muslim Uyghur people, whose culture, language, religion, dress and food is distinct from those of the Han Chinese majority, the reports said.
The United Nations' human rights office had issued a damning report in August last year that highlighted widespread arbitrary detentions and other actions by China that it said may constitute crimes against humanity.
The United States, the European Parliament and the legislatures of several other Western countries have declared that the abuses, including the arbitrary detention of an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, RFA reported.
The World Uyghur Congress has "made a crucial contribution in drawing international attention to the overwhelming campaign of physical, religious, linguistic, and cultural repression currently being waged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against the Uyghur and other Turkic people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, a campaign that many parliamentarians define as genocide", wrote Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, a Canadian member of parliament, in the nomination letter, RFA reported.
Brunelle-Duceppe joined fellow Canadian parliamentarian Sameer Zuberi, who is the chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and Ane Breivik, leader of the Liberal Party of Norway, in nominating WUC.
WUC President Dolkun Isa said that it is a great honour for his organisation to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
"This is despite China's incessant demonisation to conflate our peaceful international advocacy for Uyghur rights with terrorism and separatism," he told Radio Free Asia.
"Through decades-long global efforts to demonise the WUC, China has attempted to put roadblocks to our advocacy work and silence our voice in the world, thus continuing its ongoing crimes against the Uyghur people unabated."
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