Today is the last full day of conferences at GoetheMUN. Of course, the SOCHUM committee dived right into the second topic: the secret re-education camps in China.
In their opening speech, China claimed that the camp’s only purpose was to protect themselves from terrorist attacks by re-educating the criminals. The delegate also stated that people come there willingly. Burkina Faso stood by China, reminding the delegates that everything that is happening in this centers is exclusively the Chinese government’s business, and intervening would be a violation of China’s sovereignty. Other countries who supported China’s re-education camps were Iraq, Iran (who values China as a strategical ally), Russia (who believes these camps are not violating human rights by educating ethnic groups) and Saudi Arabia. Syria comically added that “Allah has a path for every person”, and maybe it is His wish for those people to be re-educated. Excellent religion lesson right there!
Multiple countries stood by China; for example Congo, who said that these re-education camps help kids living in Xinjiang (a poor region) learn about terrorism and other issues. Cuba presented an interesting statistic: 90% of the people who were in these camps found a decent and respectable job and are now leading peaceful lives.
The opposite side didn’t hesitate to present their arguments. Sweden accused the Chinese to be racist and wanting to erase the existence of another religion in their country. France also added that everyone should be allowed to have their own faith, and these re-education camps are going against that. Examples include forcing Muslims to eat pork and drink alcohol. The delegate continued by saying that this forced life is affecting their mental health badly, sometimes leading to suicide. Russia claimed that China should not be responsible for those deaths, since it is very probable that those people were mentally ill even before entering the camps. The UK informed the other delegates that the items ordered for and brought in those camps had nothing to do with education: handcuffs, police batons, electric cattle prods and pepper spray. China and Russia later declared these to only be safety measures. Syria rose immediately, demanding an explanation: how exactly those objects are an indication of violation of human rights? “Maybe they had a thematic party!”- cue the entire floor dying of laughter.
Afghanistan put quite a lot of emphasis on the fact that people are not randomly taken to those camps: if they are considered to be threats to the population, they are brought there to be re-educated. The USA was attacked by multiple delegates because of their border concentration camps. Their delegate argued that the re-education camps were worse. Burkina Faso was having none of it, though. They pulled up the Oxford definition of a concentration camp, insisting that it perfectly matches the border ones (in which people are kept in cages) rather than the re-education camps in China, which simply seek to educate against terrorism. Congo wisely added that in China, they are teaching the people about eradicating terrorism, not “kinky sex stuff”.
The following conferences were dedicated to finishing the resolution papers for the last general assembly. All in all, the SOCHUM committee had (once again) quite a lot of fun debating. It seems that this committee certainly knows how to party: it was by far the most entertaining one!