Between October 2019 and May 2021, Amnesty International had conducted field and remote research on the Uyghur “cultural genocide” taking place in Xinjiang, China. The report is a product of one hundred and twenty-eight people interviewed, from which 55 were ex-detainees in internment camps, 15 were witnesses who lived or visited Xinjiang since 2017, and 68 were relatives of people who went missing or are currently detained. The information given is shocking and disturbing and asks for an urgent understanding and response to the inhumane war on the Uyghurs.
Historical Background of the Uyghurs “cultural genocide”
Sean R. Roberts describes the war on the Uyghurs as a “reminiscent of the fate of indigenous populations in the context of settler colonialism elsewhere in the world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, only with twenty-first-century tools of electronic surveillance to assist in enforcement and coercion” (Roberts 2020, 200). Even though Xinjiang is an Uyghur Autonomous Region, it has been considered a part of China by the Chinese government for many centuries. Its population is one of the most ethnically diverse in China: half of its population is Turkic and Muslim, such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Hui, among others, which has been a source of conflict since the mid-90s. Before 2017, there was a snowball of events that led to the strengthening of the extremist policy repression and violation of human rights. The following points summarise the escalating chain of events from 1949 to 2017:
- From 1949, there was an increasing migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang, which intensified discrimination and marginalization of the other ethnic groups.
- In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of many states in Central Asia, the Chinese government feared any organised opposition, and Islam was considered a nationalism-inspired system that incited distrust and, therefore, required surveillance.
- In the mid-90s there were violent incidents that spurred a reinforcement of policies against Islamic groups such as the closing of mosques and Qur’anic schools. Several religious leaders were identified as “subversive” and arrested by authorities.
- The September 11 attacks intensified the Chinese government’s concerns around Islamic ethnicities, and “China began to classify Uyghur dissidents as terrorists and to pressure the rest of the world to designate Uyghur separatist groups as terrorists’ organisations”.
- In 2009, there were riots in Urumqi (Xinjiang’s capital) caused by the increasing tension between Uyghurs and the Han Chinese. Hundreds of Uyghurs were arrested and punished.
- In 2014, after stabbing and bombing attacks carried out by Uyghurs, the Chinese government launched a massive campaign against terrorism – “Strike Hard Against Violent Terrorist Activity” - and identified Uyghur’s culture as the root of its alleged terrorist’s threat.
- Finally, the incidents in Karakash and Guma in 2016-2017 were the last straw. Throughout 2017, the Chinese Communist Party re-evaluated its “counterterrorism strategy”, and Uyghur’s culture and identity were the insurgents that urgently needed to be dismantled by any means necessary.
Mass detentions from 2017 until now
In March 2017 there were already strict regulations against ethnic minorities that prohibited “extremist” behaviour, such as wearing face covers or having long beards. In April of the same year, the Chinese government’s course of action reached a whole new level of suppression and radicalism. Thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups were detained by the authorities, often without any warning, and sent to “vocational training or transformation through education” centers, which were, in fact, internment camps. In 2018, a Chinese law student in Canada was able, through Google Earth, to document the building of “94 separate new re-education internment camps throughout the Uyghur homeland” and, overall, the camps held about one million Uyghurs by the spring of 2018 (Roberts 2020, 214). At this time, the number of camps is substantially higher.
Amnesty International’s report informs, in detail, how life in these camps is extremely controlled and prison-like regulated. Many ex-detainees declared having been subjected to deficient hygiene conditions, restrictions on urination, and defecation (detainees need permission to use the toilet, - or bucket – and are surveilled while using it), insufficient food and water, and restrictions on going outside. In addition, the “education” provided on camp are classes of Chinese language, history, law, and “ideology” (International 2021, 80). These classes denigrate Islamic culture and elevate China, the Communist Party, and its president. Some interviewees reported having to memorise and recite red songs. First-hand testimony of an ex-internee on camp reported the following:
During the class there was a Han teacher who wrote Chinese characters on a board, and we just copied it without knowing what it was. That was it. We just wrote characters… It was just language… We were not allowed to speak Uyghur in class. If you did [speak a language other than Mandarin], you got punished. You were taken to a room with a tiger chair… I was taken twice. (International 2021, 84).
A disturbing fact shared by some of the interviewees was the blood collections and injections given to them without any consent or explanation. They were often told they were being given flu shots, but the regularity of the injections makes it hard to believe that was the case. Moreover, detainees were subjected to physical abuse and torture methods such as “being made to sit (as in tiger chairs), kneel or stand in stress positions for hours every day, sleep deprivation, and insufficient food, water, exercise, healthcare, sanitary hygienic conditions, fresh air, and exposure to natural light” (International 2021, 145). There are accounts of rape and other sexual violence occurring in the camps, but Amnesty International did not hear any first-hand reports.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the nightmare continues even after detainees leave the camps. Many Uyghurs face forced labour and are transferred to factories somewhere in China. Others are sent home under many restrictions on their freedom such as electronic and in-person surveillance. Cultural figures such as professors, musicians, writers, religious leaders, are usually sent straight to prison since they are culturally influential models that could jeopardize the “cultural assimilation” on camps.
Conclusion
It is shocking how these atrocities have been going on under the nose of the international community, and no effective action has been taken. Sean R. Roberts points out that many European states, the US, Australia, Japan, and other liberal democracies “have all voiced substantial concern about the situation ongoing in the Uyghur homeland” (Roberts 2020, 246-247). However, these actions have not been enough. Not only many of these countries had also violated human rights when “fighting against terrorism”, which easily questions their credibility (for instance, the US detention camp in Guantánamo Bay); but also, and perhaps even more significant, China’s economic power makes it difficult to take action. It would be economically detrimental for these countries and the global economy to isolate China at this point. Nonetheless, it has become imperative to incite global intervention. No matter how challenging it might be to find an adequate solution, the international community must actively find a progressive one that pressures China to take accountability for its actions before it is too late.
SOURCES:
- Roberts, Sean R. The War on Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.
- Amnesty International. “Like we were enemies in a war”: China’s mass interment, torture and persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang. 2021. https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/ASA1741372021ENGLISH.pdf
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