Category Archives: Uighurs

China confirms death of Uighur man whose family says was held in Xinjiang camps

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Beijing formally confirmed death to UN but man’s daughter disputes suggestion he died of ‘pneumonia and tuberculosis’ in 2018

The Chinese government has taken the rare step of formally confirming to the UN the death of a Uighur man whose family believe had been held in a Xinjiang internment camp since 2017.

More than one million people from the Uighur and Turkic Muslim communities in the far western region of Xinjiang are believed to have been detained in camps since 2017, under a crackdown on ethnic minorities which experts say amounts to cultural genocide. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly refused requests by international bodies to independently visit and investigate the region, despite growing international backlash.

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The Guardian view on the US presidential debate: a bad night for the world | Editorial

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The dismal spectacle reminded viewers what is at stake in November for the US – and the rest of us

One unmistakable winner emerged from Tuesday’s presidential debate: Xi Jinping. The loser was the American public – and anyone else unfortunate enough to have sat through the grim 90-minute spectacle.

Variously described by commentators as a trainwreck, dumpster fire, shitshow and the worst debate in presidential history, it reflected the state of the race and the nation after four years of Donald Trump. This is America in 2020: wracked by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 people and highlighted its deep structural failings on healthcare and inequality, as well as the parlous state of its politics – a realm of bitter divisions in which facts appear to be optional.

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China has built 380 internment camps in Xinjiang, study finds

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Construction has continued despite Beijing’s claim ‘re-education’ system is winding down

China has built nearly 400 internment camps in Xinjiang region, with construction on dozens continuing over the last two years, even as Chinese authorities said their “re-education” system was winding down, an Australian thinktank has found.

The network of camps in China’s far west, used to detain Uighurs and people from other Muslim minorities, include 14 that are still under construction, according to the latest satellite imaging obtained by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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China’s white paper on forced labour suggests unease at western pressure

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Document defending camps for Uighurs released days after US blocked some Xinjiang imports

China’s new white paper on forced labour in Xinjiang suggests a government uneasy about growing western pressure over abuses of Muslim minorities in the region

It also gives a rare, if oblique, glance into the scale of government attempts to reshape communities in the region, detailing how 10% of the region’s population were relocated over the past year, after being dubbed “surplus rural workers”.

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‘The memories never leave me’: Uighur teacher describes forced sterilisation – video interview

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Qelbinur Sidik, who was coerced to teach Mandarin at two of China's Uighur 're-education' camps, has described what she witnessed there as well as her own forced sterilisation at the age of 50. 

As part of a government campaign to suppress the birth rates of women from Muslim minorities, Sidik says women between the ages of 18 and 59 were told they must have intrauterine devices (IUDs) fitted or undergo sterilisation.

Sidik worked as a teacher in two camps where she says she saw starvation rations and unsanitary and humiliating conditions, including limited access to bathrooms and water. She also heard the screams of tortured prisoners and witnessed at least one inmate being carried out dead.

In the second centre where she worked, which held mostly young women, a trusted colleague told her that rape of inmates by Chinese guards was routine

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Disney remake of Mulan criticised for filming in Xinjiang

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Film credits offer thanks to eight government entities in region where rights abuses are alleged

Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan, already the target of a boycott, has come under fire for filming in Xinjiang, the site of alleged widespread human rights abuses against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.

The film, directed by Niki Caro, is an adaptation of Disney’s 1998 animation about Hua Mulan, a young woman who disguises herself as a man to fight in the imperial army in her father’s stead.

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‘Chairman Xi’ seeks only to purge and subjugate. That is his weakness | Simon Tisdall

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From Tibet to Taiwan, China’s leader is intent on wielding absolute power. Instead he is fanning the flames of dissent

It’s often said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely – but does it also induce leaders to act in foolhardy, headstrong and ultimately self-destructive ways? History, especially Chinese history, is full of examples of omnipotent rulers whose unchecked behaviour led to disaster. Xi Jinping, China’s comrade-emperor, is a modern-day case in point. Xi seems to think he can do no wrong. As a result, not much is going right.

Xi’s authoritarian, expansionist policies, pursued with increasing vehemence since he became communist party chief and president in 2012-13, have enveloped China in a ring of fire. Its borderlands are ablaze with conflict and confrontation from Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and the Himalayas in the north and west to Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Taiwan to the east. More than at any time since Mao’s 1949 revolution, China is also at odds with the wider world.

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Uighur Muslim teacher tells of forced sterilisation in Xinjiang

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Chinese government threatened woman when she resisted in move to suppress Muslim minority birth rates

A teacher coerced into giving classes in Xinjiang internment camps has described her forced sterilisation at the age of 50, under a government campaign to suppress birth rates of women from Muslim minorities.

Qelbinur Sidik said the crackdown swept up not just women likely to fall pregnant, but those well beyond normal childbearing ages. Messages she got from local authorities said women aged 19 to 59 were expected to have intrauterine devices (IUDs) fitted or undergo sterilisation.

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European tour tests Chinese foreign minister’s pulling power

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The reassessment of China highlighted by Wang Yi’s trip has political, economic and security implications

The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi did not exactly end his week-long European tour with his tail between his legs but he may have been chastened if he ever believed Beijing could simply win over Europe by pointing to the extremist cold war rhetoric of Europe’s natural ally America.

The five-nation tour surely marked the end of an era where China can any longer get away with simple homilies on win-win solutions, multilateralism and non-interference in another’s internal affairs. Pointing to Donald Trump is also no longer enough to win European friends.

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Ban US cotton imports from Xinjiang, say human rights campaigners

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Petitions issued to US authorities cite ‘integral role of forced labour’ involving Uighur Muslims and other minority groups

Human rights campaigners are calling on US authorities to ban all imports of cotton from the Chinese province of Xinjiang after allegations of widespread forced labour.

Two identical petitions, delivered today to US Custom and Border Protection, cite “substantial evidence” that the Uighur community and other minority groups are being press-ganged into working in the region’s cotton fields.

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Faith leaders join forces to warn of Uighur ‘genocide’

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Statement signed by Rowan Williams, bishops, imams and rabbis says Chinese Muslim minority faces ‘human tragedy’

Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, is among more than 70 faith leaders publicly declaring that the Uighurs are facing “one of the most egregious human tragedies since the Holocaust”, and that those responsible for the persecution of the Chinese Muslim minority must be held accountable.

The incarceration of at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims in prison camps, where they are reported to face starvation, torture, murder, sexual violence, slave labour and forced organ extraction, is a potential genocide, say the clerics.

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Secret footage shows Uighur man’s detention inside Chinese prison

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Merdan Ghappar’s texts and videos reveal shocking conditions in Xinjiang internment camps

Rare footage and text messages secretly sent by a detained Uighur man show chilling evidence of human rights violations by China, as global scrutiny of the situation in Xinjiang grows.

According to reports by the BBC and the Globe and Mail, Merdan Ghappar, a successful model on the e-commerce platform Taobao, was detained after having spent over a year in prison on a drugs charge his supporters said was trumped up.

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Why more than 1 million Uighurs are being held in camps in China – video explainer

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In Xinjiang province, China, more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are being held in 're-education' camps that the government claims are benign vocational centres teaching useful career skills. But former camp detainees have described them as de facto prisons implementing mass brainwashing and obedience to the Communist party. As more evidence emerges of torture, forced sterilisation of women and other methods of population reduction, should the situation in Xinjiang be termed a genocide? The Guardian's Lily Kuo explains 

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Why is Xi Jinping pitting China against the world?

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Xi has stifled dissent at home and is increasingly willing for China to assert itself abroad

Earlier this week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a rare meeting in Beijing with business leaders. Admitting that the Covid-19 pandemic had a “huge impact” on the country’s economy, Xi used a Chinese idiom to assure his listeners.

“While the green hills last, there will be wood to burn,” he said. “If we maintain our strategy … we will find opportunity in crisis and turbulence. The Chinese people will surely prevail over all difficulties and challenges ahead”.

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World is legally obliged to pressure China on Uighurs, leading lawyers say

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Exclusive: Sanctions on China and companies operating there, along with use of treaty agreements, can bring Beijing to account, British barristers argue

The international community is legally obliged to take action on China’s alleged abuse of Uighur and other Turkic minorities, a prominent group of British lawyers has said, suggesting nations use sanctions, corporate accountability mechanisms, and international treaties preventing racial discrimination to pressure Beijing.

China’s refusal to be held legally accountable for the widespread and documented allegations did not absolve the global community of responsibility, the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) said in a report released on Wednesday.

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UK risks China’s wrath by suspending Hong Kong extradition treaty

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Foreign secretary also bans export of riot control kit in response to security crackdown

The UK is to immediately suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and also bar the export of riot control equipment following Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law on the territory, Dominic Raab has announced.

Speaking to the Commons on Monday, the UK foreign secretary said that while Britain sought cooperative ties with China, it was deeply worried at both events in Hong Kong and the repression of the Uighur population in China’s Xinjiang province.

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China’s ambassador denies abuse of Uighurs in Xinjiang during Andrew Marr interview – video

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China’s ambassador to the UK has denied reports of abuse of the Uighur population in the Xinjiang region, as he was confronted with footage of shackled prisoners being herded on to trains.

Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Liu Xiaoming said: 'I do not know where you get this videotape,' adding, 'sometimes you have a transfer of prisoners, in any country.'

Xinjiang is home to China's Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that has been subjected to religious and ethnic persecution by Chinese authorities in recent years. 

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China’s UK ambassador denies abuse of Uighurs despite fresh drone footage

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Liu Xiaoming blames reports of forced sterilisation of women on ‘anti-China elements’

China’s ambassador to the UK has insisted the Uighur people live in “peaceful and harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups”, as he was confronted with footage of shackled prisoners being herded on to trains in Xinjiang.

Human rights groups and western governments have catalogued widespread abuses against the Muslim minority in China’s western region, including mass forced sterilisation and detainment in “re-education” camps.

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Donald Trump is a hypocrite on China – but China deserves to be condemned | Jonathan Freedland

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Beijing is crushing human rights in Hong Kong, and is accused of genocide against the Uighurs. The world cannot stand by

Donald Trump taints everything he touches. If he supports a cause, he damages it. If he takes a stance, the instinct of most self-respecting liberals is to rush to the opposing side. So when Trump rails against China, a favourite bete noire, it can make a progressive pause.

That’s especially true when the US president lurches so easily into casual bigotry – referring to the coronavirus as “kung flu” – and when his hypocrisy is so rank. Thanks to his former national security adviser, John Bolton, we know that, for all his talk, Trump begged Beijing to meddle in this year’s election in his favour, breezily granting US blessing to what Amnesty International calls the “gulag” of camps in Xinjiang, in which China holds a million Uighur Muslims against their will.

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US imposes sanctions on senior Chinese officials over Uighur abuses

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Mike Pompeo says US ‘will not stand idly by’ over abuses of ethnic minorities in China’s western region of Xinjiang

The United States has imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist party, including a member of the ruling politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities in the western part of the country.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a statement: “The United States will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist party carries out human rights abuses targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith.”

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