Cultural genocide of Uyghurs
Critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs have accused the Chinese government of propagating a policy of sinicization in Xinjiang in the 21st century, calling this policy an ethnocide or a cultural genocide of Uyghurs. In particular, they have highlighted the concentration of Uyghurs in state-sponsored re-education camps, suppression of Uyghur religious practices and testimonials of alleged human rights abuses including forced sterilization and contraception.
Background
Xinjiang conflict
Various Chinese dynasties have historically exerted control over parts of modern-day Xinjiang. The region came under modern Chinese rule as a result of the westward expansion of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, which also saw the conquests of Tibet and Mongolia.After the 1928 assassination of Yang Zengxin, the governor of the semi-autonomous Kumul Khanate in east Xinjiang under the Republic of China, Jin Shuren, succeeded Yang as the governor of the Khanate. On the death of the Kamul Khan Maqsud Shah in 1930, Jin entirely abolished the Khanate and took control of the region as warlord. In 1933, the breakaway First East Turkestan Republic was established in the Kumul Rebellion. In 1934, the First Turkestan Republic was conquered by warlord Sheng Shicai with the aid of the Soviet Union before Sheng reconciled with the Republic of China in 1942. In 1944, the Ili Rebellion led to the Second East Turkestan Republic with dependency on the Soviet Union for trade, arms, and "tacit consent" for its continued existence before being absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Chinese government sponsored a mass migration of Han Chinese to the region and introduced a number of policies to suppress the cultural identity and religion of Uyghurs. During this time, several Uyghur separatist organizations with potential support from the Soviet Union emerged, with the East Turkestan People's Party being the largest in 1968. During the 1970s, the Soviets supported the United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan to fight the Chinese.
In 1997, a police roundup and execution of 30 suspected separatists during Ramadan led to large demonstrations in February 1997 that resulted in the Ghulja incident, a People's Liberation Army crackdown that led to at least nine deaths. The Ürümqi bus bombings later that month killed nine people and injured 68 with responsibility acknowledged by Uyghur exile groups. In March 1997, a bus bomb killed two people with responsibility claimed by Uyghur separatists and the Turkey-based Organisation for East Turkistan Freedom.
In July 2009, riots broke out in Xinjiang in response to a violent dispute between Uyghur and Han Chinese workers in a factory that resulted in over one hundred deaths. Following the riots, Uyghur terrorists killed dozens of Han Chinese in coordinated attacks from 2009 to 2016. These included the August 2009 syringe attacks, the 2011 bomb-and-knife attack in Hotan, the March 2014 knife attack in the Kunming railway station, the April 2014 bomb-and-knife attack in the Ürümqi railway station, and the May 2014 car-and-bomb attack in an Ürümqi street market. The attacks were conducted by Uyghur separatists, with some orchestrated by the UN-designated terrorist organization Turkistan Islamic Party.
Government policies
Initial "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism"
In April 2010, after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, Zhang Chunxian replaced the former Communist Party chief Wang Lequan, who had been behind religious policies in Xinjiang for 14 years. In May 2014, China launched the "Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism" in Xinjiang in response to growing tensions between Han Chinese and the Uyghur population of Xinjiang itself. In announcing the campaign, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated that "practice has proved that our party's ruling strategy in Xinjiang is correct and must be maintained in the long run" in May 2014.Regulations since 2017
New bans and regulations were implemented on 1 April 2017. Abnormally long beards and wearing veils in public were both banned. Not watching state-run television or listening to radio broadcasts, refusing to abide by family planning policies, or refusing to allow one's children to attend state run schools were all prohibited. Giving a child a name that would "exaggerate religious fervor," such as Muhammad, was made illegal. Along with this, many mosques were demolished or destroyed.Re-education efforts began in 2014 and were expanded in 2017. At this time, detainment camps were built for the housing of students of the re-education programs, most of whom are Uyghurs. The Chinese government did not acknowledge their existence until 2018 and called them "vocational education and training centers." This name was changed to "vocational training centers" in 2019. The camps tripled in size from 2018 to 2019 despite the Chinese government claiming that most of the detainees had been released.
Counter-terrorism justification
China has used the global "war on terror" of the 2000s to frame separatist and ethnic unrest as acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang.In August 2018, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination decried the "broad definition of terrorism and vague references to extremism" used by Chinese legislation, noting that there were numerous reports of detention of large numbers of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities on the "pretext of countering terrorism".
In 2019, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, Sam Brownback, and Nathan Sales said that the Chinese government consistently misuses "counterterrorism" as a pretext for cultural suppression and human rights abuses.
Cultural effects
Mosques
In 2005, Human Rights Watch reported that "information scattered in official sources suggests that retaliation" against mosques not sponsored by the Chinese State was prevalent, and that the Xinjiang Party Secretary expressed that Uyghurs "should not have to build new places for religious activities." The Chinese government prohibited minors from participating in religious activities in Xinjiang in a manner that, according to Human Rights Watch, "has no basis in Chinese law."According to an analysis from The Guardian, over one-third of mosques and religious sites in China suffered “significant structural damage” between 2016 and 2018, with nearly one-sixth of all mosques and shrines completely razed. This includes the tomb of Imam Asim, a mud tomb in the Taklamakan desert. According to The Guardian, Uyghur Muslims believe that repeated pilgrimages to the tomb would fulfill a Muslim's obligation to complete the Hajj.
According to The Guardian, a reporter who visited the eastern region of Qumul in 2017 learned from local officials that over 200 of the 800 mosques in the region were destroyed and over 500 more were scheduled for demolition in 2018.
A 2019 CNN report suggested that dozens of mosques have been destroyed in China's crackdown.
Education
In 2011, schools in Xinjiang transitioned to "bilingual education." The majority of the instruction occurs in Mandarin Chinese, with only a few hours a week devoted to Uyghur literature. Despite this emphasis on "bilingual education," few Han children are taught to speak Uyghur.Uyghur students are also increasingly being sent to residential schools far from their home communities where they are able to speak Uyghur.
According to a 2020 report from Radio Free Asia, monolingual Mandarin Chinese education has been introduced in an influential high school in Kashgar which formerly provided bilingual education.
Detained academics and religious figures
The Uyghur Human Rights Project has identified at least 386 Uyghur intellectuals that were detained and has disappeared since early 2017 as victims of the massive campaign of ethno-religious repression carried out by the Chinese government in the Uyghur homeland.Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in 2014. Amnesty International called his sentence unjustified and deplorable. Rahile Dawut, a prominent Uyghur anthropologist who studied and preserved Islamic shrines, traditional songs and folklore, has also been imprisoned.
According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese government jailed Uyghur Imam Abduheber Ahmet after he took his son to a religious school not sanctioned by the Chinese state. Ahmet had previously been lauded by China as a "five-star" imam, but was sentenced in 2018 to over five years in prison for his action.
Graveyards
In September 2019, Agence France-Presse visited 13 destroyed cemeteries across four cities and witnessed exposed bones still remaining in 4 of them. Through examination of satellite images, the press agency determined that the grave destruction campaign had been active for more than a decade. According to a previous AFP report, three cemeteries in Xayar County were among dozens of Uyghur cemeteries destroyed in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019. The unearthed human bones from the cemeteries in Xayar County were discarded. In January 2020, a CNN report based on analysis of Google Maps satellite imagery said that Chinese authorities have destroyed more than 100 graveyards in Xinjiang, primarily Uyghur ones. CNN has linked the destruction of the cemeteries to the governments campaign to control the Uyghurs and Muslims more broadly. The Chinese government terms the cemetery and tomb destruction as "relocations" and claim that the dead are re-interred in new standardized cemeteries.Radio Free Asia reported that Sultanim Cemetery, the central Uyghur graveyard and a sacred shrine in Hotan city, was demolished and converted into a parking lot between 2018 and 2019.
CGTN, a Chinese state-owned international channel affiliated with the Communist Party of China, claimed that the report on grave disappearances in Xinjiang are a myth perpetrated by CNN and other Western media outlets.
Marriage incentives
According to the outreach coordinator for the U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, Zubayra Shamseden, the Chinese government "wants to erase Uighur culture and identity by remaking its women."According to gender studies expert Leta Hong Fincher, the Chinese government has offered Uyghur couples incentives to have fewer children, and for women to marry outside of their race.
Marriages between Uyghurs and Han Chinese persons are encouraged with subsidies by the government. In October 2017, the marriage of a Han Chinese man from Henan Province to a Uyghur woman from Lop County was celebrated on the county's social media page:
Clothing
Chinese authorities discourage the wearing of headscarves, veils, and other Islamic dress in the region. On May 20, 2014, a protest broke out in Alakaga, Kuqa, Aksu Prefecture when 25 women and schoolgirls were detained for wearing headscarves. According to a local official, two died and five were injured when special armed police fired into the protesters. Subsequently, a Washington Post team was detained in Alakaga and ultimately deported from the region.Children's names
According to Radio Free Asia, in 2015, a list of banned names for children called "Naming Rules For Ethnic Minorities", was promulgated in Hotan, banning potential names including Islam, Quran, Mecca, Jihad, Imam, Saddam, Hajj, and Medina. Use of list was later extended throughout Xinjiang.Allegations of human rights abuses
Inside internment camps
Torture
, a New York-based nonprofit organisation, has alleged "'rampant abuses,' including torture and unfair trials" of the Uyghurs.Mihrigul Tursun, a young Uyghur mother, said that she was "tortured and subjected to other brutal conditions... " She was drugged, interrogated for days without sleep, and strapped in a chair and jolted with electricity. It was her third time being sent to a camp since 2015. Tursun told reporters that she remembers interrogators telling her: "Being a Uighur is a crime." Another past detainee, Kayrat Samarkand, said that "'They made me wear what they called 'iron clothes,' a suit made of metal that weighed over 50 pounds... It forced my arms and legs into an outstretched position. I couldn't move at all, and my back was in terrible pain...They made people wear this thing to break their spirits. After 12 hours, I became so soft, quiet and lawful.'"
Compulsory sterilizations and contraception
Zumrat Dwut, a Uyghur woman, claimed that she was forcibly sterilized during her time in a camp before her husband was able to get her out through requests to Pakistani diplomats. While Dwut does not specify how she was sterilized, other women recount having forcefully received contraceptive implants.The Heritage Foundation reported that officials forced Uyghur women to take unknown drugs and drink some kind of white liquid that caused them to lose consciousness and sometimes caused them to stop menstruating.
Brainwashing
Kayrat Samarkand described his camp routine in an article for NPR: "In addition to living in cramped quarters, he says inmates had to sing songs praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping before being allowed to eat. He says detainees were forced to memorize a list of what he calls '126 lies' about religion: 'Religion is opium, religion is bad, you must believe in no religion, you must believe in the Communist Party,' he remembers. 'Only Communist Party could lead you to the bright future.'"Documents which were leaked to The New York Times by an anonymous Chinese official advised that "Should students ask whether their missing parents had committed a crime, they are to be told no, it is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts. Freedom is only possible when this 'virus' in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health."
The Heritage Foundation reported that "children whose parents are detained in the camps are often sent to state-run orphanages and brainwashed to forget their ethnic roots. Even if their parents are not detained, Uyghur children need to move to inner China and immerse themselves into Han culture under the Chinese government's 'Xinjiang classrooms' policy."
Labor
According to Quartz, the Xinjiang region is described as a "'cotton gulag' where prison labor is present in all steps of the cotton supply chain..."Tahir Hamut, a Uyghur Muslim, worked in a labor camp during elementary school when he was a child, and he later worked in a re-education camp as an adult, performing such tasks as picking cotton, shoveling gravel, and making bricks. "Everyone is forced to do all types of hard labor or face punishment," he said. "Anyone unable to complete their duties will be beaten."
Organ harvesting
, a journalist and China watcher, concluded that organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience became prevalent when members of the Uyghur ethnic group were targeted in security crackdowns and "strike hard campaigns" during the 1990s. Organ harvesting from Uyghur prisoners dropped off by 1999 with members of the Falun Gong religious group overtaking the Uyghurs as a source or organs. In the 2010s, concerns about organ harvesting from Uyghurs resurfaced.Outside internment camps
Forced cohabitation and abortion
In 2018, Chinese public servants began mandatory home stays with Uyghur families for assimilation aid.A 37-year-old pregnant woman from the Xinjiang region said that she attempted to give up her Chinese citizenship in order to live in Kazakhstan but was told by the Chinese government that she needed to come back to China in order to complete the process. She received an abortion that she alleged was required to prevent her brother from being detained.
Use of biometric and surveillance technology
Chinese authorities have been utilizing biometric technology to track individuals in the Uyghur community. According to Yahir Imin, a 38-year-old Uyghur, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang drew blood, scanned his face, recorded his fingerprints, and documented his voice. As stated in the article written by Sui-Lee Wee, a key piece in China's strategy is to collect genetic material from millions of people in the Xinjiang region. The genetic material contributes to an extensive database that can track Uyghur individuals who defy the campaign. China has been exploring the use of facial recognition technology to sort people by ethnicity and how to use DNA to tell if an individual is a Uyghur. According to an assistant professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Mark Munsterhjelm, The PRC is creating "technologies used for hunting people."In 2017, security-related construction tripled in Xinjiang. According to Charles Rollet, “the projects include not only security cameras but also video analytics hubs, intelligent monitoring systems, big data centers, police checkpoints, and even drones." The Ministry of Public Security has invested billions of dollars into two main government plans: the Skynet project and the Sharp Eyes project. These two projects combined are reaching to oversee China's population by the year 2020 through video camera facial recognition. According to Morgan Stanley, by 2020, there will be installments of 400 million security cameras. Various Chinese start-ups have been building algorithms to allow the Chinese government to track the Muslim minority group. These start-ups include SenseTime, CloudWalk, Yitu, Megvii, and Hikvision.
Biometric data
Officials in Tumxuk have gathered hundreds of blood samples from Uyghur individuals, contributing to the campaign in mass-collecting DNA. Tumxuk was named a "major battlefield for Xinjiang's security work" by the state news media. In January 2018, a forensic DNA lab overseen by the Institute of Forensic Science of China was built in Tumxuk. Documents from within the lab showed that the lab was supported by software created by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts company. This software was used in correspondence to create genetic sequencers, helpful in analyzing DNA. In response, Thermo Fisher declared in February that it would discontinue selling to the Xinjiang region as a result of "fact-specific assessments."GPS tracking on cars
Security officials have ordered residents in China's Northwest region to install GPS tracking devices in their vehicles so authorities can track their movements. This measure affects residents in the Xinjiang region and authorities have claimed that it "is necessary in order to counteract the activities of Islamist extremists and separatists". An announcement from officials in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture proclaimed that "there is a severe threat from international terrorism, and cars have been used as a key means of transport for terrorists as well as constantly serving as weapons. It is therefore necessary to monitor and track all vehicles in the prefecture."Installation of China-made Beidou satellite navigation systems in all private, secondhand, and government vehicles was made necessary from 20 February 2020.
International responses
Labeling the Chinese government's policy in Xinjiang an "ethnocide" or a "cultural genocide"
Since the release of the Xinjiang papers and the China Cables in November 2019, various journalists and researchers have called the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs an ethnocide or a cultural genocide. In November 2019, Adrian Zenz described the classified documents as confirming "that this is a form of cultural genocide". Azeem Ibrahim of Foreign Policy called the Chinese treatment of Uyghurs a "deliberate and calculated campaign of cultural genocide" in December 2019 after the release of the Xinjiang papers and China Cables. James Liebold, a professor at the Australian La Trobe University, has called the treatment of Uyghurs by the Chinese government a "cultural genocide" and stated that "in their own words, party officials are 'washing brains' and 'cleansing hearts' in order to 'cure' those bewitched by extremist thoughts."International Criminal Court complaint
In July 2020, Uyghur activist groups filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court calling for it to investigate PRC officials for crimes against Uyghurs including allegations of genocide.Official visits to the camps
Several official visits have been made the camps at the request of the UN and other countries. A 2019 Russian UN anti-terrorism investigator found nothing incriminating at the sites. The U.S. has called these visits "highly choreographed" and characterized them as having "propagated false narratives." The UN visit prompted anger from some members of the Uyghur community.Diplomatic reactions
United Nations
According to Human Rights Watch News, twenty-two countries issued a combined statement that called upon China to end its mass violations against the Uyghur community in the Xinjiang autonomous region in China's Northwest. John Fisher, Geneva director at Human Rights Watch stated "the joint statement is important not only for Xinjiang's population, but for people around the world who depend on the UN's leading rights body to hold even the most powerful countries to account." In the joint statement, countries stated their concerns regarding the surveillance, detention, and other ethical violations against the Uyghur and Muslim community in Xinjiang. Countries that have contributed to this statement include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.Europe
In addition to signing a joint statement regarding ethical violations affecting the Uyghur community in Xinjiang, countries such as Germany and Norway have taken further steps to express their opinions on this issue. Germany has specifically called on China to provide UN human rights access to the camps. In addition, Norway has formed an anti-internment camp awareness group.Middle East
, Angola, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and many others all signed a UN document defending China's human rights record. A spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized the camps, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later defended China during his visit there. Iraq and Iran have also remained silent while Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey have been accused of deporting Uyghurs to China. The United Arab Emirates has formally defended China's human rights records. Qatar supported China's policies in Xinjiang until August 21, 2019; Qatar was the first Middle Eastern country to withdraw their defense of the Xinjiang Camps.Central Africa
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Somalia, and many other central African countries have defended China.Southeast Asia
Cambodia, Myanmar, and The Philippines signed formal support of China's policies. Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia have all deported Uyghur people on China's request.In December 2009, the Uyghur American Association expressed concern at the return of 20 Uyghur refugees from Cambodia to China.