Washington, DC [US] April 18 : The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) has condemned the operations of international hotel chainsIHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, and Wyndham in occupied East Turkistan, where it said that Chinese government is conducting systematic campaign of colonisation and genocide.
The ETGE said that these businesses are not doing their business in ignorance. According to an ETGE release, they are building and operating hotels in regions under the jurisdiction of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a paramilitary and colonial organisation that has been sanctioned by the US, UK, Canada, and EU for its key role in carrying out China's colonial and genocidal policies.
ETGE release stated that these businesses are smearing the image of a regime that is actively working to eradicate a whole country by taking part in the Chinese state-led growth of "tourism."
According to a recent investigation, East Turkistan is home to at least 115 hotels with international brands, and an additional 74 are either planned or already under development. ETGE release highlighted that these characteristics are ingrained in the system of repression rather than existing outside of it.
In their purposeful effort to destroy East Turkistan's identity, history, and religion, the Chinese State and Chinese Communist Party have desecrated several mosques, graves, and other holy cultural places, leading to the construction of multiple hotels on their locations, ETGE release noted.
The scope and gravity of the crimes taking place in East Turkistan are astounding. Prisons and concentration camps have housed millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. Forcible sterilisation has been performed on hundreds of thousands of women. Over a million Uyghur children have been taken from their homes and put in state-run brainwashing camps, the ETGE release said.
Between 25,000 and 50,000 Uyghurs are killed annually in China's "organ harvesting operations", according to ETGE. More than 16,000 mosques and other cultural landmarks have been demolished by the Chinese occupying government, erasing millennia of East Turkistani history.
"When international corporations operate in occupied territory, on stolen land, and over the graves of our history, they are not neutral observers, they are active collaborators," said Mamtimin Ala, President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile.
"These companies must understand: no amount of branding or legal maneuvering can shield them from moral responsibility. Their profits are soaked in the suffering of our people. And history will not forget their betrayal," ETGE quoted Al as saying.
These hotel constructions are monuments to complicity rather than signs of advancement. According to the ETGE statement, they send a message to the world that genocide can be made profitable, that holy places can be turned into hotels, and that the agony of a whole country can be covered up by luxury branding.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile emphasised that ending the genocide is not possible under Chinese colonial rule. It further said, "There can be no justice, no dignity, and no lasting peace for our people while our homeland remains occupied."
The ETGE called on all international companies operating in East Turkistan to cease operations immediately. It urged governments, international institutions, and people of conscience everywhere to oppose the normalisation of genocide and stand against those who profit from atrocity.
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