The East Turkistan issue is not only an Uyghur issue, its geopolitical impact should alarm affected states across the globe.
Rukiye TURDUSH
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After the collapse of empires of Europe, new states emerged with a commitment of self-determination. After World War Two, self-determination into international law was as an essential principle and guaranteed independence again for many states subsequent follow of decolonization. However, colonization is not ending, and independence movements are continuing today, including ethnic minorities’ secession movements that were excluded or did not mention in UN self-determination law.
This paper assesses the historical and current political trends of East Turkistan, China’s colonized region, the beyond the natural and logical boundary of its “Greet wall,” with examples of international self-determination law and Chinese regional autonomy law to evaluate its justification for self-determination claim. Finally, the paper examines the importance of East Turkistan’s independence to prevent China’s total extermination of more than 11 million Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims and the importance of protecting international law principles. eBook>>>>>
Why Canada Should Take the Lead in Recognizing China’s Crimes against Uyghurs as Genocide
At least 3 million and perhaps more Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims of East Turkistan (“Xinjiang”) are currently incarcerated in Chinese concentration camps, left to face either deportation to China’s secret inland prisons, forced labor camps or death. Extensive documentation substantiating the country’s ongoing genocide exists, including camp survivor testimonies, media reports about Uyghur forced labor cases, testimonials from the relatives of victims, and video footage of hundreds blind folded Uyghur extrajudicial detainees boarding trains to unknown destinations at Korla station.
Furthermore, the establishment of this vast network of camps has shattered family life in East Turkistan. Uyghur children are taken from their families and placed children’s indoctrination camps. Adults face the grim threat of incarceration in mass forced labour camps and concentration camps, where the sexes are segregated, and detainees are subjected to torture and death. The systematic upsetting of existing family structures has provoked a drastic decline in Uyghur populations. Moreover, according to researcher Adrian Zenz, the mass birth prevention and sterilization policy imposed on Uyghur women has contributed to this dramatic decline of Uyghur populations in recent years.
All of the aforementioned atrocities fit the definition of genocide provided by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. According to the Responsibility to Protection Act, world governments should take preventative action before tensions erupt into mas killings of entire Uyghur population, yet… continue full article>>>>>
Life and Death Under China’s Control
Alongside advanced AI technology, China has engaged millions of Han Chinese cadres as human spies with the task of living in with Uyghur families to monitor and thereby control people’s thoughts and lives. How far is China prepared to go in its systematic control and brainwashing of the people of East Turkestan? And what happens to those who refuse to submit? In her essay the Uyghur human rights activist, Rukiye Turdush, explores these questions by highlighting several people’s diverging experiences.
What does the future hold for the people of East Turkistan?” I ask myself this question every day, and I fear the day when the oppressed people of East Turkestan have lost their will to resistance — when there is no chance of resistance against brutal treatment and no escape is possible.
It is not secret anymore that China’s dominance and control is not limited to forced re-education or concentration camps where 1-3 million people have been sent to be brainwashed, tortured or possibly killed, or forced labor camps and prisons. Fully implemented digital espionage and state surveillance is also a scary part of China’s total control in East Turkistan. However, Chinese oppressors are not solely relying on artificial intelligence technology such as face and voice recognition cameras and mandatory installation of spy apps on people’s phones in order to control the people of East Turkistan. Inconceivable as it may seem, they have sent millions of Han Chinese cadres as human spies to sleep over in Muslims’ homes to create a psychological dominance. Generating psychological dependency, destroying the sense of autonomy of each individual by creating a “no chance of resistance or escape” environment left only one way for these oppressed: transforming into ethnic Han Chinese with absolute loyalty and obedience to China with slavery minds, if not, you will be tortured or killed, you will have no chance to resist, escape or even die. continue full article>>>>>
https://www.penopp.org/articles/life-and-death-under-chinas-control
Can We Expect Humanity From Han Chinese Settlers?
People have wondered a great deal about why Chinese people in East Turkistan are always so supportive of their government’s genocidal policies against native Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslims in the region. Some Uyghur activists continue to appeal to their humanity, charity and morality to gain support against the Chinese government. Before expecting morality we need to understand the relationship between the Han Chinese and Uyghurs in East Turkistan and who created this relationship. There are many policies and practices including Chinese government indoctrination, nationalism, propaganda and the impact of Chinese culture itself that have contributed to negative perceptions of the Uyghurs by the Chinese. However, there are also fundamental insights that are very simple and very real, to which we need to draw attention, based around the colonial-type relationships which exist between invaders and the invaded.
Colonial relationships have been well analyzed in the rest of the world, but China’s colonialism is ignored as if the relationship between China and East Turkistan is only China’s domestic issue, based on the extent of the Manchurian Empire or Qing, as well as the Mongol Yuan Empires, under the pretence that this region is not a new colony of Han China, as if the relationship between Han Chinese settlers and Uyghurs in the region is somehow not colonial in nature. However, if we analyze the relationship through the colonial lens, then the morality of the Han invaders remains unexamined by the majority world nations, who have effectively granted the communists a “free hand” in their tacit, unquestioning support for the idea of Tarim and Jungaria as historically Han provinces claimable by Beijing. continue full article>>>>>
Genocide as Nation Building: China’s Historically Evolving Policy in East Turkistan
At Nankai University in 2003, Chinese professor Ai Yue Jing said, “Our great culture can assimilate any other nation or culture, we can change and absorb good one torture and kill bad one”. These words ushered in the new era of China’s “nation building” project in East Turkistan. [1]
Three million Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslims in East Turkistan (“Xinjiang”) are incarcerated in Chinese concentration camps and face the prospect of being killed and deported to China’s secret inland prisons as a part of the country’s ongoing genocide.[2] According to the report Genocide in East Turkistan published by the Uyghur Research Institute this year, China’s ethnic policy in East Turkistan falls into at least four of the five acts defined as genocide by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. [3] Eye-witness accounts, media reports, and testimonials of relatives of the victims have verified claims of the existence of torture and death in concentration camps,[4] as well as China’s policy of objectifying Uyghurs through experimentation in high–tech mass surveillance systems that make use of QR codes, biometrics, artificial intelligence, phone spyware, and big data.[5] China’s policies towards the Uyghurs have created horror and demoralization, destroying their belief in a world of right and wrong. Consequently, the deteriorated mental health of Uyghurs in East Turkistan has indirectly impacted on their relatives in the Uyghur diaspora. Many of them have already reported constant crying, appetite loss, sleep deprivation, loss of concentration, depression, and frequent nightmares.[6]
Despite article 2(b) of the United Nations Convention on Genocide clearly stating that causing serious bodily or mental harm constitutes genocide,[7] China is conducting a policy of physical and mental torture of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan, merely because the Uyghurs have a different race, ethnicity, culture, and religion to the ethnic Han Chinese. continue full article>>>>>
Block China With An Independent East Turkistan
People of East Turkistan, called Xinjiang by the Chinese Communist Party, have endured the long and oppressive colonisation of China for many years. Although China did not round up people of East Turkistan and shoot them with machine guns in front of the world, they have locked them up and are eliminating them one by one in concentration camps. [1]
Every Uyghur living outside China is searching and asking for the location of their disappeared family members. Uyghur girls are forced to marry Han Chinese as a part of their gene washing policy. Uyghur children are forcibly removed from their families as Chinese officials with genocidal intention proclaim, “cut the lineage, cut the roots, cut the connection.” [2]
Around three million Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslims are currently locked up in concentration camps and are being subjected to torture and death.[3] The religion, culture and identity of Muslims in East Turkistan are now entirely banned. The world has remained silent in its moral obligation to do something about this tragedy.
Under article 1(2) of the United Nations Charter, one of the main purposes of U.N. is to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace. Self- determination and equal rights of peoples is again mentioned in article 55 which lays down general social, economic and human rights. The colonial history of East Turkistan since 1949 has proven that without the peaceful independence of East Turkistan based on the principles of self determination of peoples, there will be no peace. Contrary to the UN charter, China‘s notion of peace and stability is to terrorize and eliminate the nation of East Turkistan. Why does the global community allow this and take no collective action against it? continue full article>>>>>
How China Tried to Stop My Freedom of Speech-in Canada
Rukiye Turdush is a Uighur-Canadian activist living in St. Catharines, Ontario.
My brother was killed on the streets in 1992. He was only 18. He was attacked by a mob of Chinese construction corps soldiers. He was killed in East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang region of western China) because he engaged in a peaceful protest with his friends against the millions of Han Chinese being sent into our homeland to dominate the land of our people, the Uighurs. I later gave his name to my newborn baby boy and decided to leave my country in search of a peaceful life for him in Canada.
To fly to Canada, we first had to travel to Beijing. Just before we emigrated, on our last night in China, my baby son and I were kicked out of our Beijing hotel room at gunpoint by Chinese soldiers. Why? Because we are Uighur, they wouldn’t allow us to stay in a hotel for Chinese. This nightmare occurred 20 years ago. My son, being a baby at the time, never knew what had happened, and I never told him about the fear I had that we would lose our lives that night.AD
I had thought that by escaping from Chinese regime, I had guaranteed my boy a safe and beautiful environment in Canada, with all the opportunities he could want and need. Yet, last week at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, when I made a presentation about the dire situation of our people, I realized that the shadow of the nightmare we experienced so many years ago had followed me and my son to our adopted country.
As I explained to my audience, the Chinese Communist Party has long aspired to wipe out the Uighur people and their identity. This was just as true 20 years ago as it is today, though back in the 1990s, the methods employed were gradual (such as the government’s calculated effort to change the demographic balance in East Turkestan by sending in Han Chinese). continue full article>>>>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/21/how-china-tried-stop-my-freedom-speech-canada/
China is Trying to Erase the Uighurs and Their Culture
Just imagine what it would be like if armed security forces stormed into your home, arrested your loved ones, put them in a concentration camp, and took away your children. This is what happened to the family of 44-year-old Turghunjan, who I met while on a visit to Turkey to interview Uighur refugees.
Turghunjan owned a jewellery business and for four years was regularly travelling between Turkey and China. During one of those trips in mid-2017, his family members were arrested without any explanation and his bank accounts frozen.
“I have nothing to lose, as they have arrested my wife for nothing, and I don’t know the whereabouts of my two baby twins and teenage boy,” he said. “We only want peace, security, democracy, and freedom. People like me – who are living outside China and who lost contact with their family members – are giving tremendous sacrifices for peace.”
He broke down and sobbed while telling me his story. This has been one of many Uighur families that have been broken by Beijing’s continuing repression in Xinjiang (East Turkestan).
In August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination released a report in which it said that some one million Uighurs have been detained into “counterterrorism” centres in China and that two million have been forced into “re-education camps for political and cultural indoctrination”.
The Chinese government bluntly denied these accusations and rebuffed the committee at the time. But just two months later, it appeared to legalize these internment camps. continue full article>>>>>
The Fervent Rise of Islamophobia in China
A large number of Uyghur Muslims are in detention centres
without trial and re-education camps as part of China’s crackdown
against religious ideology in Xinjiang.
Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and every Muslim in the world looks forward to it. Throughout their stay in Saudi Arabia for Hajj, they are brimming with a certain spirituality because they know just how lucky they are to be able to perform this pilgrimage. Muslims from all corners of the world gather under one sky to perform this ritual, where they interact with other Muslims in order to strengthen the bond of faith.
For Chinese Muslims, however, it’s a different story. The recent pilgrimage for Chinese, including elderly Uyghurs and Hui Muslims, to Saudi Arabia revealed how the Chinese government has tried to erect a wall between free Uyghurs living outside China and the Uyghurs from Xinjiang—also known as East Turkistan. Uyghurs residing in Saudi Arabia took to social media to describe how Uyghurs from Xinjiang—who recently came to Saudi Arabia for the annual Muslim pilgrimage—are avoiding restaurants and shops belonging to their fellow Uyghurs.
Whenever we talk about xenophobia and Islamophobia we often look towards the West, especially the increased level of bigotry witnessed in the US and other countries after Donald Trump’s rise to the US presidency. However, Islamophobia is well and truly alive in China and is only increasing with the passage of time. It manifests itself in the form of discrimination of Uyghur Muslims, labelling them as ‘extremists’ and/or ‘terrorists’. If you understand Chinese, it is very common to see Chinese websites such as sohu.com attacking Islam and Muslims. Islamophobic Chinese users have been calling for a boycott of Halal food. A recent article titled “Eliminating Extremism Should Start from Food” suggested that anyone who refuses to eat non-halal food or does not feel comfortable eating from a non-halal restaurant ‘must have a religious extremist ideology.’
The Chinese internet is heavily monitored and regulated by the government; therefore, these discriminative and anti-Islamic articles that give rise to Islamophobia among Han Chinese only exist due to state’s tacit support. The government has announced regulations—like “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region regulation on de-extremification” as well as the recent “Religious Affairs Regulations”—to insult the Muslim Uyghurs by monitoring their religious activities and then measuring those to see if these practices or activities could be deemed fit to practice by the Chinese government. So, in essence, anything religious—no matter how mundane—declared ‘impermissible’ by the government will not be allowed.
Such policies are only helping create an atmosphere of fear, fuelling tensions between Han Chinese and Uyghur Muslims. continue full article>>>>>
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/09/25/the-fervent-rise-of-islamophobia-in-china/
Let’s make no mistake: This is China’s Berlin Wall
Uyghurs who had just arrived for pilgrimage got off his taxi
upon learning he was Uyghur who knew their language
– they knew they’d be reprimanded upon returning to China for speaking with Uyghurs abroad.
For the Hui, though, situation is completely different as reports have suggested that they freely visited the Uyghurs living in the Gulf country.
One Uyghur taxi driver in Saudi Arabia revealed that Uyghurs, who had just arrived for the pilgrimage from Xinjiang, looked very scared and immediately got off his taxi upon learning he was Uyghur, who also happened to know their language. They knew that they would be reprimanded by the Chinese government upon returning to China for speaking with Uyghurs abroad.
However, starting from January of this year, following China’s draconian orders of forcing Uyghurs abroad—including students—to return to their home in China, the wall created between Uyghurs from Xinjiang, and Uyghurs who are free has become more nerve-racking than ever. continue full article>>>>>
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/08/30/lets-make-no-mistake-this-is-chinas-berlin-wall-2/
China’s shameless lies: There is No Prosecution on Uyghurs
Recently, the Chinese embassy in Ankara organized a conference titled “The situation of ethnic groups and religions in Xinjiang Uyhgur Autonomous Region in China”, with participation of academics and experts from China. According to Sabah Daily News, Chinese academic Man Yuan Dong said at the conference that, the claims about the mistreatment in Xinjiang region do not hold true and President Recep Tayip Erdogan, of Turkey, knows about the region’s tolerance for religion, communities and minorities better than anyone as Xinjiang Region has been a place of harmony and love for everyone, and the President, in all his visits, knows this from firsthand experience.
On that statement, I would like to draw your attention to the following facts; first of all, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited East Turkistan only once, and that too in 2012, where he stayed for one day in Urumchi, the city which is heavily populated with Han Chinese Ethnic migrants.
Had he stayed longer, even then he would have learned nothing about all the prosecuted Uyghurs. Because the Chinese government is in power to manage who says what in such situations, to cover up the true side of the story. Besides, the indication or referral towards the Turkish President was a pointless one, if any one should be referred to it should be Amnesty International or Human rights, as they have scientifically accurate and well documented reports regarding the mistreatment of minorities in the region for many years. continue full article>>>>>
