BEIJING: China on Friday blasted an award given in the US to an exiled Uighur dissident as a “blasphemy against and a stain upon human rights,” as President Xi Jinping visited Washington.
Xi, who was in Washington for the Nuclear Security Summit, met his US counterpart Barack Obama on Thursday amid tensions between the world’s two biggest economies over the South China Sea, cyber security, rights and other issues.
A day earlier the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) gave Dolkun Isa, an activist from China’s Xinjiang region, an award for “his dedicated human rights advocacy.”
Xinjiang is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority, many of whom say they face cultural and religious repression, and the area is regularly hit by violence which Beijing blames on Islamist separatists.
“That an organization would give a terrorist like Dolkun with such an extensive criminal record an award is blasphemy against and a stain upon human rights and the rule of law, and also makes a mockery of them,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular briefing Friday.
Isa is now a German citizen and chairman of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, which advocates for the rights of Chinese Uighurs around the globe.
Hong said he was “a red-level target wanted by Interpol and the Chinese police for his organization and implementation of numerous bombings, robberies, killings and other serious criminal offenses and violent acts,” which Isa denies.
“These accusations are made to discredit my work,” he said, adding that Beijing’s policies had left Uighurs living in “a climate of fear and helplessness.”
“I firmly advocate for a peaceful resolution to the Uighur issue and reject violence, and this threatens China,” he said.
In his acceptance speech Wednesday, Isa acknowledged that the Chinese government saw him as a “terrorist” and had issued a warrant through Interpol for his arrest, leaving him unable to enter countries “vulnerable to Chinese pressure”
VOC executive director Marion Smith hailed Isa as a “proud addition to the ranks of world leaders” in a statement.
According to its mission statement, VOC seeks to “memorialize, educate and document the grim legacy of communism around the world.” On its website, it solicits donations to help “put communism on the ash heap of history.”
Over the past two years, Beijing has carried out a “strike hard” campaign in Xinjiang aimed at stopping unrest that has claimed hundreds of lives. Scores of people have been sentenced to death, while hundreds have been jailed or detained on terror-related offenses.
Beijing slams US NGO award for Uighur dissident
Beijing slams US NGO award for Uighur dissident
Bangladesh readies for polls, worry among Hasina supporters
- The Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people will hold elections on February 12, its first since the uprising
- Hasina was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity in Nov. and her former ruling party has been outlawed
Gopalganj: Bangladesh is preparing for the first election since the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina, but supporters of her banned Awami League (AL) are struggling to decide whether to shift their allegiance.
In Gopalganj, south of the capital Dhaka and a strong bastion of Hasina’s iron-grip rule, residents are grappling with an election without the party that shaped their political lives for decades.
“Sheikh Hasina may have done wrong — she and her friends and allies — but what did the millions of Awami League supporters do?” said tricycle delivery driver Mohammad Shahjahan Fakir, 68, adding that he would not vote.
“Why won’t the ‘boat’ symbol be there on the ballot paper?” he said, referring to AL’s former election icon.
The Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people will hold elections on February 12, its first since the uprising.
Hasina, who crushed opposition parties during her rule, won landslide victories in Gopalganj in every election since 1991.
After a failed attempt to cling to power and a brutal crackdown on protesters, she was ousted as prime minister in August 2024 and fled to India.
She was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity by a court in Dhaka in November, and her former ruling party, once the country’s most popular, has been outlawed.
Human Rights Watch has condemned the AL ban as “draconian.”
“There’s so much confusion right now,” said Mohammad Shafayet Biswas, 46, a banana and betel leaf seller in Gopalganj.
“A couple of candidates are running from this constituency — I don’t even know who they are.”
As a crowd gathered in the district, one man shouted: “Who is going to the polling centers? We don’t even have our candidates this time.”
‘DEHUMANISE’
Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, hailed from Gopalganj and is buried in the town.
Statues of Rahman have been torn down nationwide, but in Gopalganj, murals and statues are well-maintained.
Since Hasina’s downfall, clashes have broken out during campaigning by other parties, including one between police and AL supporters in July 2025, after which authorities filed more than 8,000 cases against residents.
Sazzad Siddiqui, a professor at Dhaka University, believes voter turnout in Gopalganj could be the lowest in the country.
“Many people here are still in denial that Sheikh Hasina did something very wrong,” said Siddiqui, who sat on a government commission formed after the 2025 unrest.
“At the same time, the government has constantly tried to dehumanize them.”
This time, frontrunners include candidates from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious party.
Both are from Hasina’s arch-rivals, now eyeing power.
“I am going door to door,” BNP candidate S.M Zilany, 57, told AFP, saying many would-be voters had never had a candidate canvass for their backing.
“I promise them I will stand by them.”
Zilany said he had run twice against Hasina — and was struck down by 34 legal cases he claimed had been politically motivated.
This time, he said that there was “a campaign to discourage voters from turning up.”
Jamaat candidate M.M Rezaul Karim, 53, said that under Hasina, the party had been driven underground.
“People want a change in leadership,” Karim told AFP, saying he was open to all voters, whatever their previous loyalties.
“We believe in coexistence; those involved in crimes should be punished; others must be spared,” Karim said.
Those once loyal to Hasina appear disillusioned. Some say they had abandoned the AL, but remain unsure whom to support.
“I am not going to vote,” said one woman, who asked not to be named.
“Who should I vote for except Hasina? She is like a sister.”
