From Chartists and Suffragettes to Irish republicans and today’s Palestine activists, the treatment of hunger strikers exposes a consistent pattern in how the British state represses those it deems political prisoners, says KEITH FLETT
IT has been a long time coming, but finally the UN Human Rights Committee (OHCHR) report on the treatment of the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in western China, has been released.
There is a great deal of controversy about this population group. Western countries in particular accuse China of “cultural genocide,” while countries in the global South, including several leading Muslim countries, view it completely differently. For example, at the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation summit in Pakistan in March 2022, China was invited as the guest of honour.
In the past, a lot of fake news about the Uighurs has been produced. That should come as no surprise. From the West, China is increasingly under fire. The use of human rights allegations is a tried and tested means of pushing countries into a corner and provoking hostile public opinion.
The cancelled China trip of the German Foreign Minister marks a break with Helmut Schmidt’s China policy and drives Germany further into Washington’s confrontation course, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
For those in the West, hunger is often just the familiar feeling of a growling stomach between meals — in Gaza, it has become a strategic weapon of slow, systematic and deadly destruction, writes MARC VANDEPITTE



