Statement to the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues

by Enghebatu Togochog

Geneva, November 25, 2014 

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me the opportunity to talk about the issues the Mongolian people in China are facing as China intensifies its political repression, economic exploitation, cultural eradication and environmental destruction in Mongolian areas. Here, I would like to raise the following specific cases to the Forum:

The first is the extrajudicial detention of Mongolian dissidents and activists. Mr. Hada, who demanded “genuine autonomy” in accordance with both the Chinese constitution and Minority Region Autonomy Law, is still being held in a “black jail” after completing his 15-year jail term in 2010. His wife and son were also arrested and placed under extrajudicial detention for an extended period of time before they were placed under house arrest.

Ms. Huuchinhuu, a Mongolian dissident writer, is still under house arrest and is suffering from breast cancer and loss of eyesight. Her request for medical parole has been denied. Many other dissidents and human right activists have also been arrested, detained, sent to jail, or put under house arrest under similar circumstances.

The second is the violence committed against rural Mongolian herders in pastoralist communities. As these regions become the largest “energy base of China,” Chinese extractive industries are rushing to the Mongolian grassland for coal, gas, oil, and other minerals. Violent clashes are taking place on a daily basis between Mongolian herders, who are attempting to defend their grazing land, and Chinese miners, who open up new mines recklessly and destroy the grassland for profit. Many herders have been assaulted, injured, hospitalized, arrested, detained, and sent to jail for defending their legal rights.  

In several violent cases, Mongolian herders were brutally run over by heavily-loaded mining trucks; in a discriminatory and ethnic hatred case, Chinese miners stated that a “smelly Mongolian herder’s life is worthless” and that “Mongolians must be entirely wiped out” before they brutally beat the herder to death.

The Chinese authorities not only failed to address these forms of violence, but also hastened the arrest, detainment, and imprisonment of those herders who attempted to defend their rights. In the past year alone, at least 300 herders were arrested, detained, and sent to jail.

We urge the Chinese government to respect basic human rights and the fundamental freedoms of the Mongolian people in accordance with United Nations charters and universally accepted human rights standards.

Thank you.

Enghebatu Togochog

 

The Chinese Government delegate’s response to Enghebatu Togochog’s speech

Geneva, November 25, 2014 

A moment ago, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center attacked the ethnic policy of People’s Republic of China. The Government of China has guaranteed all kinds of rights for ethnic minorities in accordance with the law. The Government of China has been helping all Chinese people, including ethnic minorities, in their social and economic development as well as in improving their welfare. The success and achievement have been well-known to the world. As for this speaker’s mentioning of the case in which a man was killed by a mining truck, it was a traffic accident that happened in Shiliin-gol League of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2011. The local government had already handled the case in accordance with the law.

Thank you.

 

Enghebatu Togochog’s written response to the Chinese Government delegate’s speech

Geneva, November 25, 2014 

 

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to make a quick comment in response to the statement made by the Chinese delegates, who spoke after my presentation yesterday.

The Chinese delegate stated that the case of killing Mongolian herders I had mentioned in my presentation was “just a traffic accident that happened in May 2011.”

This is inconsistent with the facts.

First of all, the case the Chinese delegate mentioned was just one instance in a series of violent killings, brutal beatings, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial detentions, and imprisonments of Mongolian herders, activists, and dissidents. In the past few years alone, there have been at least six major, high-profile hate crime and hate speech cases in which Mongolian herders were beaten to death for defending their grazing land.

Second, the specific case the Chinese delegate referred to was a typical hate crime, involving hate speech and discrimination against the Mongolians by the Chinese. In many brutal killing and beating cases, the Chinese perpetrators often used strong hate speech before carrying out the violent acts.

For example, in the case I mentioned in my presentation, the Chinese truck drivers and miners used hate speech before brutally running over the victim, Mr. Mergen, dragging his body for 150 meters under the wheels of their heavy coal hauler. Their hate speech included: “A smelly Mongolian herder’s life is worth no more than 400,000 yuan,” and “killing a Mongolian herder is not a big deal at all.”

In another violent killing case, a Mongolian herder named Bayanbaatar was brutally beaten to death in the Ordos region by a group of Chinese railroad workers. The Chinese workers had said, “All Mongolians must be killed,” and “let us kill all the Mongolians one by one!”

In another hate speech case, a Chinese perpetrator named Zhou Zheng stated publicly on the Internet that “the Mongolians do not understand human language because they are all animals,” and that “the Mongolian race must be wiped out by humanity.”

This is to prove that  the hate crimes and hate speech against the Mongolians by the Chinese are commonplace in the Mongolian areas of China.