By Serena Bazzana A million Uyghurs are currently being held in “re-education camps” in the Chinese region called Xinjiang 新疆 or East Turkestan شەرقىي تۈركىستان. According to a UN Human Rights panel, the Chinese Government is committing Crimes Against Humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. The report includes “substantial mass arbitrary detention, torture, cultural persecution, and forced labor” as serious human rights violations. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, The Netherlands, and other countries have denounced the human rights abuses China is committing as genocide. Yet, the Chinese government denies all accusations about violationing Uyghurs’ human rights. Photo Credit: Ozan Kose, Getty Images Who are Uyghurs? Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group residing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The population amounts to around 12 million, less than half of the 26 million XUAR’s total inhabitants. Uyghurs have a distinct identity, influenced by Persian, Central Asian, and Chinese cultures and shaped by the cultural exchanges with various civilizations through the Silk Road. They are mostly Muslims and speak their own language, belonging to the Turkic family and written in Arabic script. The Islamic faith is a strong marker of the Uyghurs’ identity. It plays a central role not only in the spiritual life but also in the daily practices and costumes. Where is East Turkestan or Xinjiang? The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was established in 1955 in northwest China. The Chinese name of the region “Xinjiang 新疆” was adopted in 1884 and it means “land newly returned.” The Chinese government claims that the region “has never been East Turkestan” because it has always been an “inseparable part of Chinese Territory.” It is the largest Chinese region, making up for one-sixth of the total national territory. It is one of the five Chinese Autonomous Regions with Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Guanxi. These regions have their own local government directly below the federal government. However, Xinjiang, like Tibet, is subjected to severe restrictions by the central government. The region produces about one-fifth of the global cotton and is also rich in oil and natural gas. Furthermore, it is located in a strategic position for trade links both with Europe and Central Asia, essential for the Belt Road Initiative. Photo Credit: drishtiias.com What is happening in East Turkestan? In recent years, Xi Jinping has been carrying out policies to achieve his totalitarian idea of cultural homogeneity. Xi has a cultural mission to create and develop a great modern Chinese civilization and culture. Xi justifies his policies as an “anti-terrorism and anti-secessionist struggle” to uphold the principle of separation of religion from government while respecting and protecting freedom of religious belief as stipulated in the PRC’s Constitution. However, in Xinjiang, Xi’s agenda aims at erasing Uyghurs and other minorities in favor of ethnic Han Chinese. The policies implemented act on different levels, including constant surveillance, cultural erasure, and imprisonment in “re-education” camps. In 2017, Chen Quanguo, CCP Secretary of XUAR, implemented a surveillance state, modeled on the Tibetan “grid management system.” Chen recruited 90,000 new police officers while purging the local officials who were not harsh enough. To track Uyghurs’ movements, Chen installed a hyper-digital system of surveillance, including digitally coded ID cards, iris scans, DNA collection, and an extensive network of CCTV cameras. Furthermore, outside each Uyghur’s house, there are QR codes for the police to scan to gather background information on the family, such as if one of the members has been in the camps and the level of allegiance to the state. Chen also established 7300 new checkpoints, which in urban areas are every 100 meters. To achieve cultural homogeneity, Xi is also trying to culturally erase Uyghurs and other minorities. The culture erasure is targeted to physical sacred places for culture and traditions, such as mosques and cemeteries. For instance, based on satellite images, it is estimated that 16,000 mosques in the Xinjiang Region have been destroyed since 2017, corresponding to 65% of the total mosques. The Chinese government justified these actions by saying that there are enough mosques and “some were unnecessary.” The remaining mosques have been either “miniaturized” for supposedly “security reasons,” such as the Kargilik Grand Mosque which has been reduced by one-fourth of its dimensions, or they are obliged to “hang the national flag, post copies of the Chinese constitution, laws, and regulations, uphold core socialist values, and reflect ‘excellent traditional Chinese culture.’” For futile reasons, such as downloading WhatsApp, which is prohibited in China, or using your Passport “too often,” Uyghurs are arbitrarily imprisoned in “Vocational Education and Training Centers.“ There are currently more than one million Uyghurs and other minorities, including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Hui Muslims, imprisoned in at least 380 camps. At first, the Chinese government denied the existence of these camps. However, they now refer to them as “vocational training centers” in which people go voluntarily to learn new skills, graduate, and then leave to find good jobs. Testimonies from the camps told stories of inhumane treatment, physical and psychological torture, forced labor, and sexual abuse. Former inmates also testified that they were forced to learn Chinese, attend pro-CCP indoctrination and self-criticism sessions centered on the renunciation of Islam and Uyghur culture, and eat pork and drink alcohol. Photo Credit: The Select Committee on the CCP
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) also reported that Uyghur women had been systematically administered “unknown drugs and injections, forcibly implanting intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUDs) prior to internment, coercing women to accept surgical sterilization, and using internment as punishment for birth control violations.” Consequently, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions diminished by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018. Uyghurs who are not imprisoned risk being deported to work in factories across China, especially in the production of cotton products. Between 2017 and 2019, ASPI estimated that more than 80,000 Uyghurs had been forcibly transferred out of Xinjiang. It is estimated that one in five cotton products in the world is made by Uyghurs exploited by major companies, such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Apple, Fila, etc. The enormous number of camp prisoners’ children are completely isolated from their families. More than 500 thousand are enrolled in new “boarding schools,” which are essentially state orphanages. Only Mandarin is allowed, practicing Islam is forbidden as well as Uyghur language and culture. The government aims at “socially re-engineering” Uyghurs through the indoctrination and sinicization of the new generation by depriving them of the possibility of learning their own culture. It is of utmost importance to stay up to date and keep yourself informed to gather the most accurate and relevant information. The following websites can help in doing so regarding the rights of Uyghurs and the situation in Xinjiang: https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/ https://xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/ https://uhrp.org/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/free-xinjiang-detainees/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/uighurs https://www.janacekara.com/en a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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