UN Needs To Show It Has Listened To Victims, Not Perpetrators, Of Genocide

July 21, 2022 | TheJ.ca | By Omer Kanat

On July 15, a new documentary by French director Christophe Cognet opened in New York. The film, From Where They Stood, tells the story of photos taken clandestinely by prisoners of the Nazis in 1943–1944. The film serves as “testimony to the millions of lives lost,” as the producers describe it, and to “the courage of those who risked everything to send us these artifacts from hell.”

It’s been three months since the world learned about the leaked detainee photos of Uyghurs, taken by Chinese police in 2017–2018. More than 2,800 of them appear in the “Xinjiang Police Files.” Everyone who has seen the row upon row of detainee mugshots is haunted by them, and the echoes of past genocides. Uyghurs were taken because of “growing a beard” or having “studied Islamic scripture.” The youngest detainee is a 15-year-old girl. The oldest is a 73-year-old woman. Scrolling through the images is an overwhelming and dismal experience. 

Read the full op-ed here: https://www.thej.ca/2022/07/21/un-needs-to-show-it-has-listened-to-victims-not-perpetrators-of-genocide/