Letter: Academics in Northern Ireland have failed to speak out against China's human rights abuses

Letters to editor

The silence of local academics regarding China’s appalling human rights record points to the danger of dependency on Chinese student fees.

There are over 2,000 Chinese students attending university in Northern Ireland.

The academic community is normally very vocal on human rights abuses worldwide yet seem to have nothing much to say about China.

China oppresses one million Uighur Muslims held in re-education concentration camps and Christians, who find their pastors imprisoned on trumped up charges such as ‘causing a nuisance’.

The silence is not the exclusive preserve of the academic human rights community. Our political representatives in the form of Michele O’Neill and Emma Little Pengelly appeared recently in a photo call with the Chinese Consul to Northern Ireland.

Their lack of awareness is also stunning, are they not aware from House of Commons statements that Chinese consulates operate as Police Stations policing the student population as well as the local established Chinese community.

Shame on you all.

Nigel Stewart, Moira