The Plight of The Uighurs
Written on September 5th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}Uighurs, also spelled Uyghurs, are a Turkic minority ethnic group originating from Central and East Asia and recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They have their language, Uighur, a part of the Turkic group of Altaic languages, and they are considered to be one of the oldest Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia. They are mentioned in Chinese records dating as far back as the 3rd century CE. They first rose to prominence in the 8th century, when they established a kingdom along the Orhon River in current north-central Mongolia. However, in 840, this state was overrun by the Kyrgyz, and the Uighurs migrated southwestward to the area around the Tien Shan. The Uighurs formed another independent kingdom in the Turfan Depression region, but this was overthrown by the expanding Mongols in the 13th century.
Today, we know Uighurs as a prominent Muslim group in China, though that wasn't always the case. Originally, they were Manichaean, but, during the 12th century, they converted to Buddhists. The Islamization of Uighurs was completed much later, during the 17th century, after the conquests of the Turkic tribes. In early modern times, the history of the Uighurs is the story of Islamic city-states, notably those based in Kashgar and Khotan, ruled by caliphs, who were both temporal rulers and spiritual leaders of Naqshbandi Sufi orders. Surprisingly, these Muslim Uighurs who are now being oppressed by the Chinese govt were once supporters of the Qing dynasty during the 17th century to overthrow the Buddhist Uighur control over Dzungaria. But even that ended in a genocidal solution for the Buddhists.
The modern-day tension between the Uighur community and the Chinese Government dates back to establishing the independent East Turkistan Republic in 1933. The Uighur separatists were primarily instigated by the Turkish Jadidist movement, emphasizing the power of education as a tool for personal and national self-advancement, a development sure to disturb the traditional status quo in Xinjiang. The birth of the Soviet Union increased the popularity of communism while the rise of Jin Shuren, an oppressive anti-muslim Governor, added fuel to the fire. Uighurs were forcefully resettled in lands near deserts, and their taxes were doubled. The final straw was in 1931 when a Chinese officer supposedly raped a Uighur girl. This led to widespread resistance and finally into the establishment of the first ETR in 1933. However, this state was just as oppressive to outsiders, namely the Swedish Christian missionaries and the Indian traders in the area. Thus, this independence was held briefly and in 1934, was soon conquered by Sheng Shicai's Chinese forces with help from the Soviet Union. The Soviets had a more substantial influence in the Xinjiang area than Sheng Shicai discerned, which led to his fall and establishing the second East Turkestan Republic in 1944. This region was virtually under USSR's control until Sheng Shicai switched his allegiance after major Soviet defeats at the hands of the Germans in World War II. This led the Xinjiang region to be absorbed by the People's Republic of China in 1949 with decades of oppression to come.
Over the years, central government policies have gradually curtailed the Uighurs' religious, commercial, and cultural activities. Large numbers of majority Han Chinese have been encouraged to move to the region. From the 1950s to the 1970s, a state-orchestrated mass migration into Xinjiang has raised the number of Han from 7% to 40% of the population, exacerbating ethnic tensions. China's Strike Hard campaign against crime, beginning in 1996, saw thousands of arrests and executions and multiple human rights violations. This led to a feeling of alienation amongst the Uighurs. Hence, several extremist groups formed, most notably the Shock Brigade of the Islamic Reformist Party, responsible for the 1992 Urumqi bus bombing resulting in three deaths. During Ramadan, a police roundup and execution of 30 suspected separatists resulted in massive demonstrations in February 1997, claimed as "riots" by the Chinese media. This was followed by a series of bomb attacks throughout the Xinjiang region for the next decade.
Tensions increased in 2007 due to a bombing that killed sixteen police officers four days before the Beijing Olympics. Further, in 2009, a conflict between factory workers resulted in the Urumqi riots where thousands of Uighurs rioted. The most outrageous matter was the aftermath of the riots where there's no concrete data of the number of deaths, while thousands were also reported "missing". Since then, there have been countless such incidents with Uighur and police casualties, but the Chinese response to curb these acts has been very questionable. Since 2014, Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been imposed under extensive controls and restrictions which the Chinese Government has imposed upon their religious, cultural, and social lives. They have been banned from fasting during Ramadan and have been placed under constant surveillance for acts of "religious extremism" like quitting smoking, alcohol, growing a beard. To control the Uighur population, they have been forcefully sterilized, and a government-orchestrated migration has now made the Han population over 40% in the Xinjiang area. Possibly, over a million Uighurs have been detained in mass detention camps masqueraded as "re-education camps". In these camps, the inmates are forced to adhere to Chinese communist ideologies by "singing hymns praising the Chinese Communist Party" and writing 'self-criticism' essays". While the Chinese Government had denied their existence initially, BBC's satellite imagery suggests that these camps are rapidly expanding. There are also several reports of the Chinese Government moving large numbers of Uighur Muslims, along with other minority groups, to factories across the country, where they work "under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor."
In August, the footage of a former Uyghur model was released, a rare glimpse of life in these "re-education centers." The footage shows the model in filthy clothes, handcuffed to his bed while Chinese propaganda was being announced in the background. Further, along with the video, he texted that "50clusteredere cluttered in a small room, cuffed and with sacks on their head," and he once" heard a man scream out of pain from morning till evening." In another incident, Feroza Aziz, 17, from New Jersey, USA, was banned for a video on TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing platform, for a 'hidden anti-china sentiments.' In her video, she stated that "people who go into these concentration camps don't come out alive" and "this is another holocaust, yet nobody is talking about it." These statements led her to be banned from TikTok, which further shows the amount of authoritarianism China wields over information and free speech, which is being abused to hide the facts.
Several countries, including the USA, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, have raised their concern time and again regarding the human rights violations of the Uighur Muslims at the Chinese Government's hand. Surprisingly, the major Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have rarely questioned these actions against the Uighur Muslims. On second thoughts, maybe this is not so surprising, considering China's ever-increasing economic and political clout over these countries.
In the end, the data of missing people, detained people, and casualties of riots are mere estimates. The ground reality is still unclear and should consist of numbers much higher than those released by the Chinese media, a mouthpiece of the Government. Further, Uighurs are just one of the few groups facing basic human rights violations as a similar situation also exists in Hong Kong. This raises serious concerns over the Chinese Government's ideals and governance.
It's important to take cognizance of the fact that the suppression of the Uighur's in China is both systematic and authoritarian and that the international community has a grave responsibility towards protecting the already deeply persecuted minority from the Orwellian nightmare they face daily.