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Xinjiang leak reveals extent of Chinese abuses in Uighur camps
A leak of thousands of photographs reveals more details about the internment of Uighurs, but China calls it ‘lies’.
A leak of thousands of photos and official documents from Xinjiang has shed new light on the extent of alleged abuses against the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s far western region.
The files, obtained by US-based academic Adrian Zenz, were published as UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet began a long-awaited and controversial trip to Xinjiang where Beijing is accused of “crimes against humanity” for its treatment of the Uighurs.
Activists have said Chinese authorities have detained at least one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps and prisons in the region, which Beijing has defended as vocational skills training centres necessary to tackle “extremism”.
But the trove of police photographs and internal documents – sent to Zenz by an anonymous source who hacked into official databases in Xinjiang – adds to evidence that the mass internments are far from voluntary, with leaked documents showing top leaders in Beijing, including President Xi Jinping, calling for a forceful crackdown.
“This is by far the most important leak of evidence from the region and the largest and the most significant,” Zenz told Al Jazeera. “It’s much more significant than anything we’ve seen before because it contains evidence on so many levels.”
Until now, only a few officials associated with Xinjiang have been subjected to US sanctions, but Zenz says the trove of files directly implicates Xi and China’s central government in the crackdown in the region.
A leak of thousands of photographs reveals more details about the internment of Uighurs, but China calls it ‘lies’.
www.aljazeera.com
Or we can talk about how China is actively destroying 1,000 year old Islamic culture in the region
China has renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, say human rights groups
This article is more than 9 months old
Report finds that religious, historical and cultural references have been removed in crackdown by Beijing
Hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns have been renamed by Chinese authorities to remove religious or cultural references, with many replaced by names reflecting Communist party ideology, a report has found.
Research published on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the Norway-based organisation Uyghur Hjelp documents about 630 communities that have been renamed in this way by the government, mostly during the height of a crackdown on Uyghurs that several governments and human rights bodies have called a genocide.
Report finds that religious, historical and cultural references have been removed by Beijing
www.theguardian.com
Or we can talk about how Han Chinese are ethnically replacing the native inhabitants who have been there since before the concept of China was even a though process
China tests new ethnic assimilation policy on Uyghurs
The measure aims to further replace Uyghur culture with that of Han Chinese, experts say.
By Gulchehra Hoja for RFA Uyghur
2024.01.26
Chinese President Xi Jinping poses with a group of Kyrgyz performers in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang region, July 13, 2022.
Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP
Northwest China’s Xinjiang region is the first area to implement a government policy promoting integration among ethnic groups to achieve President Xi Jinping’s goal of establishing a unified national identity, Chinese media reported.
The regulation calls for the creation of mixed housing, themed venues and cultural parks, and sports and cultural activities that highlight characteristics of Chinese culture and promote zhonghua minzu — a single Chinese nationality that transcends ethnic divisions.
The policy has raised concern among China watchers and scholars, who say its goal is to further erase the cultural identity of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples and subsume them into the dominant Han Chinese culture.
The measure, known as the “Regulation for Promoting Interaction, Communication, and Integration Between Ethnic Groups,” went into effect on Jan. 1 in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, a nearly 270,000-square-kilometer (104,000-square-mile) multiethnic area that borders Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, according to a Jan. 16 report by China’s People's Daily.
A mix of Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Kyrgyz and other ethnicities live there.
Ili is serving as a test for the policy before the Chinese government rolls it out in other parts of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, experts say.
‘Ethnic genocide’
The policy implemented in the prefecture’s capital Ghulja “aims to dismantle the Uyghur mentality, submerging them within the Chinese population and ultimately eradicating their existence,” said Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress.
“It serves as a continuation of ethnic genocide, systematically dismantling Uyghur culture through this approach,” he said. “I fear that similar measures will soon be applied in Kashgar, Aksu, Kucha, Korla and numerous other locations.”
Adrian Zenz, director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, said the regulation aims to “formalize a policy of assimilation and population dilution” for national security reasons.
“Many of the outlined regulations are not entirely new, but they formalize a policy of assimilation and population dilution, which makes this new initiative very significant,” said Zenz who has spent years documenting China’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs and has written about Beijing’s measures to dilute the ethnic Uyghur population in Xinjiang.