{"id":116656,"date":"2018-08-20T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116656"},"modified":"2018-08-14T15:15:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T14:15:10","slug":"one-million-muslim-uighurs-have-been-detained-by-china-the-u-n-says-wheres-the-global-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/one-million-muslim-uighurs-have-been-detained-by-china-the-u-n-says-wheres-the-global-outrage\/","title":{"rendered":"One Million Muslim Uighurs Have Been Detained by China, the U.N. Says. Where\u2019s the Global Outrage?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Police patrol in a night food market near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in China\u2019s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on June 25, 2017, a day before the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Photo: Johannes Eisele\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Aug 2018 – <\/em>It was on September 16, 2001, five days after the 9\/11 attacks, that President George W. Bush declared his now-infamous \u201cwar on terrorism<\/a>.\u201d Other governments around the world followed suit \u2014 but few matched the speed, intensity, and sheer cynicism with which the autocrats in Beijing aligned themselves with the Bush administration.<\/p>\n

Dogged by protests and revolts from a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority called the Uighurs<\/a> in the vast and autonomous Central Asian border region of Xinjiang<\/a> \u2014 or East Turkestan, as it is historically referred to by the Uighurs \u2014 the Chinese spotted an opportunity<\/a>. In the weeks and months after 9\/11, Beijing began submitting documents to the United Nations alleging that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement<\/a>, or ETIM \u2014 a group that few people had ever heard of, or could even confirm the existence of \u2014 was a \u201cmajor component of the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and \u201can important part of his terrorist forces<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0By September 2002, both the U.N.<\/a> and the United States<\/a> had listed ETIM as a \u201cterrorist organization\u201d \u2014 throwing\u00a0the Uighurs under the geopolitical bus.<\/p>\n

One. Million. People. There are around\u00a011 million Uighurs\u00a0living in Xinjiang, which means that almost one in 10 of them has been detained.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fast forward 17 years: On Friday, a panel of U.N. human rights experts said<\/a> Uighurs in Xinjiang were being treated as \u201cenemies of the state\u201d and announced that it had received credible reports about the \u201carbitrary and mass detention of almost 1 million Uighurs\u201d in \u201ccounter-extremism centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

One. Million. People. It\u2019s an astonishingly high number. In the context of the Uighur population as a whole, it\u2019s even more shocking: There are around 11 million Uighurs<\/a> living in Xinjiang, which means that almost one in 10 of them has been detained, according to the U.N. How is this not anything other than one of the biggest, and most underreported, human rights crises in the world today?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Chinese flag flies over a local mosque that had been closed by authorities as an ethnically Uighur woman sells bread at her bakery on June 28, 2017, in the old town of Kashgar, in the far western Xinjiang province, China. Photo: Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

To be clear, the Chinese have launched vicious crackdowns against the Uighurs on several occasions since 9\/11 \u2014 most notably, the \u201cstrike hard and punish<\/a>\u201d\u00a0campaign of 2009. In fact, ever since Chinese communist forces conquered and occupied the short-lived East Turkestan Republic<\/a> in 1949 and turned it into the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region<\/a>, any attempts by Uighurs to demand greater freedom or autonomy from Beijing have been brutally stamped out<\/a>. This, it seems, is how the Chinese do \u201cassimilation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, as Amnesty International\u2019s Nicholas Bequelin<\/a> told me, the sheer scale of this latest crackdown should be seen as a \u201cturning point.\u201d The Chinese government is currently \u201cengaged in a mass brainwashing operation that requires the detention of hundreds of thousands of people, arbitrarily, outside of any legal framework, in order to subject them to intense political indoctrination, in the hope that this will make them into a more compliant and loyal political entity,\u201d Bequelin said.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t work, of course. As Bequelin pointed out, \u201cThere is no way that China can ensure it has sufficient loyalty from the Uighur people.\u201d The Chinese, he said, will instead \u201ccreate a generation with very deep grievances because they are detained outside of any kind of legal framework and they are treated as colonial subjects.\u201d Every colonial project, he added, \u201cgenerates its own anti-colonial project.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Uighur woman sweeps outside her house on July 1, 2017, in the old town of Kashgar, in the far western Xinjiang province, China. Photo: Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

As with the<\/u> U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, China\u2019s war on terror in Xinjiang risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the Chinese \u2014 like the Americans and the Israelis \u2014 don\u2019t really give a damn about alleged terrorist threats. This has much less to do with security and much more to with politics. Beijing is asserting control over a restless province that borders eight countries \u2014 including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Other economic factors come into play, too: Xinjiang is home to the country\u2019s largest reserves of coal and natural gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fighting terrorism, though, has become a useful cover for authoritarian governments around the world. Bequelin, who is the East Asia director at Amnesty International and a former visiting scholar at Yale Law School\u2019s China Center, draws a \u201cdirect line\u201d from the Bush declaration of a war on terror in 2001 to the repression of the Uighurs in 2018.\u00a0\u201cThe war on terror rhetoric immensely benefitted the Chinese,\u201d said\u00a0Bequelin. \u201cIt was a 180-degree turn\u00a0for the discourse of the Chinese state\u00a0with respect to its ability in Xinjiang: from minimizing and trying to hide it to casting its efforts and suppression of any form of dissent as \u2018counterterrorism.\u2019 So there is a direct line here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war on terror rhetoric immensely benefited the Chinese.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That isn\u2019t to say that Uighur militant groups are a myth, but the few that do exist are small, weak, and pose very little threat<\/a> to the Chinese state. Most are inspired by local factors rather than international alliances. To quote\u00a0Michael Clarke<\/a>, an Australian academic who has studied Xinjiang, \u201cIt\u2019s not that China shouldn\u2019t be concerned about [global terrorist ties], but the core issue is that the linkages have been exaggerated by the Chinese government.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t encouragement from\u00a0the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, Bequelin noted, but the ongoing persecution in Xinjiang that \u201cwill drive certain people to embrace radical forms of anti-state protests, including violence\u201d \u2014 maybe even \u201cusing the jihadi grammar to oppose the state.\u201d Think about it: Since 9\/11, jihadist groups have succeeded in recruiting young and angry Muslim men from across the globe by claiming their enemies are fighting a \u201cwar against Islam<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0But why should the Uighurs have to watch propaganda videos online when they can see what is happening in front of their eyes?<\/p>\n

The Chinese government seems bent on humiliating and abusing the Muslims of Xinjiang. In recent years, Beijing has banned Uighur parents from naming their sons \u201cMuhammad<\/a>\u201d; children from entering mosques<\/a>; and government employees from fasting\u00a0during Ramadan<\/a>. Muslim men are prohibited<\/a> from growing \u201cabnormally\u201d long beards, while Muslim women cannot wear<\/a> the face veil in public.<\/p>\n

Then there are the \u201cpolitical camps for indoctrination<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0cited by the U.N. panel last week, in which hundreds of thousands of detainees are forced to shout Communist Party slogans<\/a>; declare their loyalty<\/a> only to the Chinese dictator, President Xi Jinping; and are \u201clectured about the dangers of Islam<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The word \u201cOrwellian,\u201d therefore, does not do justice to the harrowing accounts of abuses coming out of Xinjiang, rightly dubbed<\/a> a \u201cpolice state\u201d and \u201capartheid with Chinese characteristics\u201d by The Economist. The U.N. panel said it was a \u201cmassive internment camp\u201d \u2014 \u201ca sort of \u2018no-rights zone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Demonstrators attend a protest in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, on July 5, 2018, to denounce China\u2019s treatment of ethnically Uighur Muslims during a deadly riot in July 2009. Photo: Ozan Kose\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

So where is<\/u> the global outcry? Where are the protests from Western governments, which so often claim to value human rights above all else? President Donald Trump says he has \u201ca lot of respect for China<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and likes to brag that Xi Jinping is \u201ca friend of mine<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0On a visit to China earlier this year, British Prime Minister Theresa May<\/a> won plaudits from Chinese state-run media for being \u201cpragmatic\u201d and ignoring Western journalists and activists who \u201ckeep pestering [her] to criticize Beijing\u201d over human rights abuses. Her fellow European leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, has visited China 11 times in 12 years<\/a> \u2014 but has never publicly raised the issue of the Uighurs on any of those trips.<\/p>\n

Where is the outrage from the governments of majority-Muslim\u00a0countries, which so often claim to speak on behalf of their oppressed Muslim brothers and sisters across the globe?<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where is the outrage from the governments of majority-Muslim countries, which so often claim to speak on behalf of their oppressed Muslim brothers and sisters across the globe? They are loud in their condemnation of Israel\u2019s subjugation of the Palestinians and Myanmar\u2019s ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. But a million Muslims behind bars? Beards and veils banned? Imams humiliated<\/a>? The news out of Xinjiang has been met only with radio silence<\/a> from the 57 member states of the Organization\u00a0of\u00a0Islamic Cooperation. Take the Turkish government, which in the past has spoken out<\/a> in defense of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, but these days is keen on cozying up to Beijing<\/a>. Or consider the Iranian government, which not long ago announced<\/a> a \u201cnew chapter\u201d in Tehran-Beijing relations, praising China for having stood \u201cby the side of the Iranian nation during hard days.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are an occupied territory,\u201d said Uighur diaspora leader\u00a0Anwar Yusuf Turani<\/a>, in 2015. \u201cWe know the plights of our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine, Kashmir, but why doesn\u2019t the Muslim world know about our struggle?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good question. Some might say it is unrealistic to expect Western or Middle Eastern countries to stand up to China, which has such massive political and economic leverage over them. According to Amnesty\u2019s Bequelin, though, leverage works both ways. He points to the fact that the European Union is China\u2019s biggest trade partner<\/a>, so of course \u201cthe EU can do a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an easy justification to say countries can\u2019t say anything because China is too important to them as an investor or trade partner,\u201d he said. Yet, \u201cif Egypt, or Turkey, or the OIC, or a broad alliance at the United Nations, were to start asking questions that are raising legitimate concerns and did not sound hostile \u2026 it could put China on the back foot and might ultimately lead the leadership [in Beijing] to change their calculations about what they\u2019re doing in Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, however, both liberals in the West and Muslims in the East have utterly failed the Uighurs of Xinjiang. The Uighurs are being subjected to a brutal and vile campaign of cultural cleansing, of mass detention, torture, and brainwashing at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, while the rest of us stand by and watch. How is this happening in 2018? We should all hang our heads in shame.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mehdi Hasan<\/a><\/em> – <\/em>@mehdirhasan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Aug 2018 – One. Million. People. There are around 11 million Uighurs living in Xinjiang, which means that almost one in 10 of them has been detained. Where is the outrage from the governments of majority-Muslim countries, which so often claim to speak on behalf of their oppressed Muslim brothers and sisters across the globe?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":116661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}