A second genocide is advancing, and yet broadcasting sources have turned a blind eye on this matter. Uyghurs, alternatively named Uighur’s, are a mostly Muslim Turkic ethnicity who are culturally and ethnically close to Central Asia, residing in Xinjiang, China. They are currently facing repression, systematic oppression, and torture in “reeducation camps”. The Chinese government has detained more than a million Muslims in these camps and reject any plead of sharing further information.
If you have not heard about the concentration camps in China yet, let me bring you all the way back to its history. In the ninth century, the Uighurs migrated to Xinjiang from Mongolia after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate. Uighurs are not ethnically or culturally Chinese, but Turkic people are closer to Uzbek and distantly related to Turkey. As a minority who takes up a majority of the population of Xinjiang, they refer to it as Eastern Turkestan. Half of the 11 million Uighurs are historically and culturally Muslim. In August of 2016, Xi, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, selected Chen Quanguo as Xinjiang Party Secretary, in which he used his position of power to introduce measures of repression, counter-terrorism, including the infamous concentration camps and advanced surveillance technology. Xinjiang exercises complete control, using hyper surveillance to monitor, spy, and track residents. Phones and every form of the media are tracked, and cameras with face identification have been used to monitor the actions of the Uighur. Many mosques and shrines have been destroyed or closed to the public, the Uighur language has been banned and forbidden from being used in many school districts, and face coverings and other religious attire have been prohibited.
Up to two million Uighurs and other Muslims like Kazakhs and Uzbeks have been detained since April 2017. Those who have not been detained continue to suffer both oppression and discrimination by Chinese authorities. Although information is limited, it is said that detainees are forced to pledge loyalty, renounce Islam, sing praises for the Communists, and learn Mandarin in under extremely surveillanced conditions while others were tortured, subjected to sleep deprivation, and sexually abused. These camps have displaced children and parents, forcing parents to make a choice of returning home and risking detention, or staying away from Xinjiang without the connection, communication, or contact of their child.
Why is China doing this? Chinese officials have been concerned with the extremist and separatist ideas and view the Uighurs as, “different”. China feels threatened by this, and to undergo the elimination of these perceptions, they use camps to “reeducate” Uighurs and practically erase their rooted culture and ethnicity while brainwashing them with the Communist ideals and morals. The Chinese government has crafted an understanding that any expression of Islam is extremist - a reaction that was rooted in terrorist attacks such as 9/11. The government used this to justify their extreme systematic repression towards Uighurs as a way to dissipate the global war on terrorism. In 2009, Uighur protestors voiced their opinion towards state-incentivized Han Chinse migration and the widespread cultural discrimination, resulting in two hundred deaths and using the protests as one of the reasons China has created this approach/ began to study the aims of Uighurs.
Chinese officials denied the camps’ existence and instead referred to it as a “boarding school” that allows Uighurs to adapt skills as trainees voluntarily. Although, documents in 2019 provided evidence that they were torturing, repressing, and locking Uighurs in camps to abolish the ethnicity and control their morals/integrity. Detained Uighurs have been forced to work at factories located close to the camps as a plan for the Chinese government’s economic development; in the resource I’ve linked below, you can find big corporate businesses that are abusing their power by using labor from concentration camps. Even outside of the detention camps, the government continues to eradicate forms of religious freedom and basic human rights. As previously noted, surveillance is heavily exercised, and the information is collected in massive databases known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform which creates lists of “suspicious” people.
It is near impracticable to even attempt influence towards the Chinese officials to suspend the camps and oppression of the Muslims, as the UN officials and many foreign governments have already persisted and tried, but there are still ways to help and support. I have linked a few resources that I find helpful which include donations, writing templates, and further information regarding brands that use concentration camp labor for their prosperity. I encourage you to continue your journey of knowledge, compassion and foster an understanding of issues outside your own comfort bubble. We must talk about these issues and continuously mitigate the tension that confronts us from these conversations. The end of our fight towards religious freedom, access to necessary resources, free healthcare, and basic human rights is far from over.
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Written by Kelly N. from Worcester Massachusetts
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