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  1. #51
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat View Post
    trying to think of Caucasians who treated minorities kindly...fail*
    Quote Originally Posted by Latindancer View Post
    The Irish, perhaps ? Or the Scots ?
    ...they were the oppressed minorities, not the oppressors of minorities...

  2. #52
    I'm in Jail

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    Yes, but there were minorities in those countries. For instance, I have read that there are 28 different races represented in Scotland.

  3. #53
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Latindancer View Post
    I have read that there are 28 different races represented in Scotland
    ...rodents don't count...

  4. #54
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    Well, that was a conversation stopper, wasn't it ?

  5. #55
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Thousands March in Brussels to Protest Mass Detentions of Uyghurs

    Nearly 2,000 ethnic Uyghurs living in exile from their homeland in China marched on Friday in Brussels, political seat of the European Union, to call attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs held by Beijing in political re-education camps in northwest China’s Xinjiang region.


    Protesters came from across Europe, Australia, Japan, and Turkey, while other protests were held on Friday in Washington D.C., Canada, Australia, and Japan.


    “This is only the beginning,” Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said in a statement after Friday’s march.


    “This protest showcases the complete awakening and unity of the Uyghur people,” Isa said.


    “We are here to call on the EU, the U.N., the U.S., and the international community to raise the case of the nearly one million Uyghurs extrajudicially detained by the Chinese authorities,” he said.


    “We urge the European Union to act on behalf of the Uyghur people, [and] we are here to send a clear message to the Chinese government that no matter how it represses the Uyghur people, it can never break our spirit for freedom, democracy, and human rights.”


    Also speaking after the march, former WUC president and respected leader Rebiya Kadeer said that Friday’s protest had been brought together by “the tears of our people.”


    “We are going to save our people in the camps,” Kadeer said.


    “In the 21st century, there has been no other government but China that has locked up a million people in detention. Therefore, we will continue protests like this in the future,” she said.


    Discrimination, repression


    Since April 2017, members of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group suspected of separatist views have been detained in camps throughout Xinjiang, where Uyghurs have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    Central government authorities in China have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in Xinjiang, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret. However, officials in many parts of the region have described in RFA telephone interviews sending large numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and have even described overcrowding in some facilities.


    The United States has meanwhile called on China to “end their counterproductive policies” in Xinjiang and has urged Beijing to release the estimated hundreds of Uyghurs arbitrarily detained there.


    Speaking at a press briefing on April 20, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters that Washington is “increasingly concerned about excessive restrictions on freedom of religion and freedom of beliefs in China,” as well as the country’s “efforts to pressure other governments into forcibly returning Uyghurs to China or to coerce family members.”


    Since Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo was appointed to his post in August 2016, he has initiated unprecedented repressive measures against the Uyghur people and ideological purges against so-called "two-faced" Uyghur officials, a term applied by the government to Uyghurs who do not willingly follow directives and who exhibit signs of "disloyalty."


    China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.


    While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.

    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018164256.html

  6. #56
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Popular Uyghur Singer’s Whereabouts Unknown, Believed Detained in Xinjiang Re-Education Camp

    A Uyghur pop star in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), who had worked to bridge the divide between his ethnic group and the country’s Han Chinese majority, is missing and believed detained in a “political re-education camp,” according to sources.


    Ablajan Ayup, 34, known as the “Uyghur Justin Bieber,” was taken into custody by a state security unit in the XUAR capital Urumqi on Feb. 15 as he returned from Shanghai, where he had traveled to perform as part of a music tour, a friend told RFA’s Uyghur Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.


    The friend said that Ayup’s arrest followed a “brief detention and questioning in December 2017,” although he was unsure of why the singer, who is also known as “AJ,” had been investigated at the time.


    According to his friends on WeChat, Ayup last posted to the social media site on the evening of Feb. 14, and has neither performed nor been heard from since.


    Police in Urumqi’s Tianshan district and in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture’s Guma (Pishan) county, where Ayup is from, told RFA that they are aware of who he is, but could not confirm that he had been detained.


    But a police officer in Guma’s Chawda township acknowledged that authorities in Ayup’s nearby home township of Sanju had briefly detained him there at the end of last year.


    “I know he was arrested, but I don’t know where he was held,” the officer said, before referring additional questions to the Sanju township and Guma county police.


    Since April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” views have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout the XUAR, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    China's central government authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but local officials in many parts of the region have in RFA telephone interviews forthrightly described sending significant numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and even described overcrowding in some facilities.


    Maya Wang of the New York-based Human Rights Watch told The Guardian in January that estimates of XUAR residents who had spent time in the camps went as high as 800,000, while at least one Uyghur exile group estimates that up to 1 million Uyghurs have been detained throughout the region since April 2017, and some Uyghur activists say nearly every Uyghur household has been affected by the campaign.


    Last month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Chris Smith—the chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China—called on U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to visit Xinjiang and gather information on the detention of Uyghurs, which they termed "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”



    Popular singer


    Ayup was born in Sanju township in 1984 and relocated to Turpan at the age of 15 to study art. He returned home and worked as a teacher while writing music on the side until 2006, when he got a break and became a nationally recognized performer.


    Drawing inspiration from his idol, Michael Jackson, Ayup wrote songs about education and Uyghur identity, and became very popular among Uyghurs—particularly children.


    He rarely discusses politics, but has nonetheless run afoul of the authorities, as noted in an article about him by Time magazine in 2014.


    After ethnic violence in July that year left at least 100 people dead outside of the city of Kashgar (Kashi), according to state media, authorities shut down a concert Ayup had planned to hold in Urumqi that was to be a display of ethnic unity, less than an hour before showtime. The singer responded by posting a picture of himself on Instagram with a caption that read “I am not a terrorist!”


    In July 2017, University of Washington anthropologist Darren Byler wrote about how Ayup generally “demonstrates a careful awareness of the desires of both his audience and his censors,” saying that in doing so, “he is able to continue to inspire hope in his audience of young Uyghurs.”

    But for Uyghurs in the XUAR, toeing the line is no easy task, particularly since regional party chief Chen Quanguo was appointed to his post in August 2016 and embarked on unprecedented repressive measures against members of the ethnic group.

    One of Ayup’s friends on social media speculated that he may have been detained because he had once traveled to Malaysia—one of dozens of countries authorities say are off limits to Uyghurs because of the risk of “extremist” Muslim indoctrination. Others suggested that he had been targeted for his work with a charity that benefited Uyghurs, or because of his love for Uyghur heritage.

    In speaking with Byler last year, Ayup indicated that despite his efforts to avoid controversy, he was coming under increasing scrutiny from authorities.“Actually I am just a singer not a politician,” he said at the time. “I only know about music.”

    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018131924.html

  7. #57
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    is missing and believed detained in a “political re-education camp,” according to sources.
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    a friend told RFA’s Uyghur Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    One of Ayup’s friends on social media speculated that he may have been detained
    Looks like three dependable, trustworthy sources and facts your quoting, marvellous.

    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Ayup indicated
    Don't suppose you have a link to where this "indication" was published, do you?

    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Ablajan Ayup
    You sure he's not from Sheffield?

  8. #58
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Navigating Checkpoints in the Uyghur Homeland

    On a visit in April 2018 to the Uyghur homeland in Northwest China I was amazed by the number of checkpoints that turn every city and town into a maze of ethno-racial profiling and ID scans. In some areas, the checkpoints are every several hundred meters. The checkpoints are only for those who pass as Uyghur. Han folks and obvious foreigners are usually directed to walk through the exits of the checkpoints with the wave of a hand. The checkpoints are not for them.


    Since 2009 there have been a number of large-scale violent incidents involving Uyghurs, state security and Han Chinese civilians. Since 2014 the state has conducted a so-called People’s War on Terror that has subjected Uyghurs between the ages of 15-45 to intense scrutiny. As a result of this campaign, the state has detained hundreds of thousands of young Uyghurs in a reeducation camp system while radically increasing the police presence.


    At the checkpoint exiting the highspeed rail station in Turpan I observed the way “native” (Uy: yerlik) people were directed through two long lines to have their IDs checked while others were permitted to go through a line through an exit gate on the left without any check at all. The determination of who was “native” was made by a Uyghur officer who was scanning our faces for racial phenotypes and the level of fear in the individual. People who walked confidently without looking at the officer were sometimes read as Han even if they were not. Speaking Uyghur I asked the Uyghur women around me which line a foreigner should go through. They said I should go with them.


    A face scan checkpoint to exit the high-speed train in Turpan. The line on the left side which goes through a simple metal gate held open by an officer is for Han people.




    When it was my turn I explained in Uyghur to the young Uyghur officer that I was a foreigner. He said we needed to go into the police station across the square to register. As we walked toward the station he asked me in a really pointed way if I could also speak Chinese. I said I could. He seemed to be suggesting that I do so when we entered the station itself.

    We joked about how hard it was to learn languages. He said he didn’t have good learning environment, so his English was not good. When I entered the police station I understood why he was suggesting that I speak Chinese, the Han officers were observing the work of the many junior Uyghur police officers in the station. If I spoke Uyghur, it may have been a problem. I explained in Chinese that I was just visiting Turpan for the afternoon and planning to see some tourist sites.

    They joked about how in America people were able to take vacations. The police never get a break, they said. A Uyghur officer scanned my face on my passport photo and then matched it to a scan of my face using an app on her phone. They explained that this scanning was for my protection while I was in Turpan. Face-scanning people was just a normal part of life here.

    While I was there a young Uyghur man was escorted in. He was nervous and stuttering a bit, his face was pale. The officer accompanying him said his ID had beeped when he went through the checkpoint. My second face scan of the day was done so I wasn’t able to stay and hear what they were going to do with him.


    Over the course of a week in cities across the Uyghur homeland I went through dozens and dozens of checkpoints. I saw young Uyghur officers berate elderly Uyghurs for not showing their IDs. I saw many random checkpoints at the sides of the road that only targeted Uyghur young men and women; or that only targeted cars driven by Uyghurs. Throughout my time there I did not see a Han person asked to show his or her ID at spot checks in the Uyghur districts of Ürümchi, Turpan or Kashgar. The unwritten rules were clear.


    A random smart phone spot check near Kashgar’s New Bazaar.




    At some checkpoints, officers also ask Uyghur young people to give them the passwords to open their smart phones. At these checkpoints, the officers look at the spyware app Clean Net Guard (Jingwang Weishi) that all Uyghurs are now required to install on their phones. The officers match the registration of the phone to the ID of the person and they also see if any alerts have been issued by the app. The app scanned the content on the phone and content sent from the phone for any material deemed “extremist” or “separatist.” These types of checkpoints are particularly harrowing for young Uyghurs, because the evidence from these scans is used to send Uyghurs to indefinite detention in reeducation camps.


    At a checkpoint in Kashgar’s Old City I came across a Uyghur woman screaming at a Han officer in Chinese. With tears in her eyes she was yelling, “How many people are left in your family?” He tried to shut her up by barking “Yak!” “Yak!” (No! No!) in Uyghur and then switching to Chinese he yelled “Bu!” “Bu!” (No! No!) trying to shut her up. People are not permitted to protest the indefinite detention of their loved ones. Those that do are often detained themselves. I didn’t linger because I didn’t want the outcome to be worse for her.



    At this checkpoint in Kashgar the sign says in both Uyghur and Chinese that ID cards will be checked. In practice only Uyghur IDs are checked.



    https://livingotherwise.com/2018/05/...ghur-homeland/

  9. #59
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Uyghur Schoolchildren, Parents Forced to Abstain From Fasting During Ramadan

    Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are forcing Uyghur students and their parents to sign pledges that they will not fast during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan in a bid to further undermine the religious traditions of the mostly Muslim ethnic group.


    Officials have typically forced restaurants to stay open and restricted access to mosques during Ramadan, and last year sources told RFA’s Uyghur Service that Uyghur Communist Party cadres, civil servants and government retirees were made to sign documents that said they would neither fast nor pray during the holy month, ostensibly to set an example to other Uyghurs in the community.


    But a student in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Peyziwat (Jiashi) county recently told RFA that school officials made him and his classmates sign agreements with their parents that they would not fast during Ramadan—which falls between May 16 and June 14 this year—marking the first time authorities have been known to target school-age children with the measures.


    The report suggest that authorities are making unprecedented incursions into the personal lives of Uyghurs to eliminate what they call signs of religious “extremism” in the region.


    “As we are students, we don’t fast,” said the student, who spoke with RFA on condition of anonymity.


    “We have signed a school agreement and also written a letter of promise.”


    When asked if his parents were fasting during Ramadan, the student said that they weren’t because “they are not allowed to practice such things in front of … their children.”


    “To act as role models, of course they will not fast,” he added.


    A female cadre from Peyziwat county said that ahead of Ramadan “all cadres and party members were called to the county office for a meeting, in which we were told to ‘be more vigilant’ and to ‘pay special attention’ to anyone who complains about the government’s policy regarding religious extremism.”


    “The cadres are working hard on … educating [residents] about the incorrectness of fasting,” she added.


    When asked whether fasting was considered an “illegal religious activity,” the cadre acknowledged that it is not, but said “people shouldn’t complain when living under such good conditions.”


    She also confirmed a report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier this month that authorities are imposing regular “home stays” on Muslim Uyghur families of cadres who record information about their lives and political views, and subject them to political indoctrination, as part of an increasingly invasive “strike hard” campaign in the region.


    “They are helping farmers get out of poverty,” she said of the home stay policy, which the government says provides families with access to education about technical skills and teaches them Mandarin Chinese to help residents find better work.


    Other sources, including an officer at a police station in Aksu (Akesu) prefecture, said increased security measures are in effect around the region during Ramadan.


    “We have intensified patrols in order to retain stability, and at the moment there are no instability issues,” said the officer, before hanging up the phone.



    Existing measures


    The new restrictions surrounding Ramadan are in line with existing measures targeting religious “extremism” that have been introduced in recent years.


    Since April, thousands of Uyghurs accused of harboring “extremist” and “politically incorrect” views have been detained in political re-education camps and prisons throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic group complain of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    Authorities have relied on a list circulated early last year of “75 Signs of Religious Extremism” to detain Uyghurs amid a string of harsh policies attacking their legitimate rights and freedoms enacted since Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo was appointed to run the region in August 2016.


    Among the signs of extremism on the list were “conducting business as usual” and “women who wear religious clothing to work” during Ramadan, “storing or purchasing large quantities of food for home” and “acting abnormal,” and “praying in groups in public outside of mosques.”


    But party officials told RFA that they had been notified of several new “signs of extremism” in April last year, including people who stand with their legs wide apart while praying, dye their hair with henna, wear short trousers, wear a watch on their right wrist, and those suddenly abstaining from alcohol.


    Another list informs officials to watch out for the so-called “28 Signs of Illegal Religious Activities.”


    Ahead of Ramadan this year, the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) exile group issued a statement urging the Chinese government to ensure the right to religious freedom for Uyghurs, and to allow them to observe the holy month without restrictions.


    “Each year, the month of Ramadan has been turned into one of fear and anxiety because of the increased restrictions, which has caused untold disturbance in the daily life of the Uyghur people,” WUC president Dolkun Isa said at the time.


    China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.


    While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.


    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018151019.html

  10. #60
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    US Rejects China’s Request For UN to Cut Ties With NGO Linked to Exiled Uyghur Leader

    A U.S. envoy has strongly rejected a call by China to withdraw special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from an NGO that promotes the rights of minority peoples, based on its ties to the head of an exile Uyghur group Beijing accuses of “terrorism.”


    In a letter dated May 17, China’s permanent mission to the U.N. urged the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations under ECOSOC to remove consultative status for Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), after the group named World Uyghur Congress (WUC) President Dolkun Isa as its representative during the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in April.


    The Chinese delegation claimed that Isa—a German citizen of Uyghur ethnicity—had been “participating, inciting and funding separatism and terrorism for years,” adding that while participating in regional dialogues at UNPFII he had indicated that he was “representing WUC instead of STP,” despite only having accreditation as an STP representative.


    “All the above actions seriously violates relevant rules and regulations of the United Nations,” the letter said, urging the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations “to uphold the authority of the U.N. Charter and withdraw the consultative status of STP.”


    During the resumed session of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations on Monday, the Chinese delegation reasserted its position that STP’s status should be withdrawn, saying that the “acts of this society run counter to the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter.”


    In response to the request, Ambassador Kelley Currie, the U.S. Representative for Economic and Social Affairs to the U.N., said she was saddened to see the committee “indulging in the Chinese delegation's Islamophobia, in which they conflate the efforts of an individual to advance the religious and human rights of a persecuted minority in China with terrorism, without providing any substantiated evidence.”


    Currie noted that Washington has repeatedly asked Beijing to provide proof of its allegations that Isa was involved in terrorist activities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), but had never been given “any actionable intelligence that would indicate that what they are saying is true.”


    “This is not about the Society for Threatened Peoples and their contributions to the United Nations, this is about the temerity that [STP] have to allow an individual who is silenced in China—and a whole community, frankly, that is silenced in China—to speak out on behalf of the rights of that community,” the ambassador said, urging China to withdraw its request.


    “Isn’t this what the U.N. is all about,” she asked. “Isn’t this whole organization here to promote self-determination?”

    Currie said that reports of mass incarcerations in the XUAR were documented by looking at Chinese procurement requests on Chinese websites requesting Chinese companies to tender offers to build “political re-education camps,” and that Beijing was seeking to prevent Isa from speaking out about the issue, as well as other rights abuses there.


    “This is what this is about today—let’s please not make any mistake about what we’re talking about,” she said.


    Lacking any evidence of terrorist activities, she added, Washington would stand by its decision to grant Isa—“a German citizen in good standing and without a criminal record”—a multiple entry, 10-year visa to the U.S., and the right to continue to meet with U.S. officials.


    “This is clearly an incident of the Chinese government using its position on this committee, and its friends on this committee, to engage in a reprisal against an individual,” Currie said.


    Committee chair Jorge Dotta ruled that the U.N. would discuss China’s concerns with STP and decide whether to withdraw the NGO’s consultative status by May 25.



    ‘Crimes against humanity’


    Speaking to RFA’s Uyghur Service on Tuesday, Isa said China seeks to “cover up its crimes against humanity” in the XUAR, where thousands of Uyghurs accused of harboring “extremist” and “politically incorrect” views have been detained in political “re-education camps” and prisons throughout the region since April 2017.


    “That is why China is always afraid of the Uyghur issues raised at the U.N.,” he said, referring to complaints by Uyghurs of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    “It is no coincidence that China wants to prevent me from speaking at the U.N. by accusing me of ‘terrorism,’ a bogus charge it has never been able to substantiate.”


    In February, INTERPOL confirmed that it had deleted a “Red Notice”—an international wanted person alert—for Isa, who fled China in the mid-1990s, for his involvement in peaceful Uyghur student protests in the late 1980s.


    Isa, who was granted refugee status in Germany in 1996 and later gained German citizenship, learned in 1999 that China had issued the Red Notice against him, demanding his arrest and extradition back to China to face charges.


    As a result of the alert, Isa said he had faced harassment—including detention and arrest—by authorities in South Korea, India, the U.S., Turkey and Italy while advocating for human rights for the Uyghur people.


    Isa said that China attempts to “silence all Uyghur voices,” both at home and abroad, but “cannot break our resolve to speak the truth of its brutal rule in East Turkestan,” using the Uyghur name for the XUAR.


    “I will speak in spite of Chinese harassment, resistance, and false accusations. I will continue to speak until the Uyghur issue becomes a central issue to be resolved at the U.N. and all world capitals.”


    China's central government authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but local officials in many parts of the region have in RFA telephone interviews forthrightly described sending significant numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and even described overcrowding in some facilities.


    Maya Wang of the New York-based Human Rights Watch told The Guardian in January that estimates of XUAR residents who had spent time in the camps went as high as 800,000, while at least one Uyghur exile group estimates that up to 1 million Uyghurs have been detained throughout the region since April 2017, and some Uyghur activists say nearly every Uyghur household has been affected by the campaign.


    Last month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Chris Smith—the chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China—called on U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to visit Xinjiang and gather information on the detention of Uyghurs, which they termed "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”


    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018154314.html

  11. #61
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Terrorists and freedom fighters eh, so similar to some.

  12. #62
    last farang standing
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    It is mainly western democracies that bring up human rights complaints. You will certainly not here it from Asean or Russia as well as most muslim countries. Unfortunately for the Uyghurs they are muslim and therefore unlikely to get much support from the west which has to contend with anti muslim feelings within it's own borders as well as its own interests in dealing with China, therefore the Uyghurs will come a poor third regardless of how oppressed they are by the Chinese government. Of course China will do as it pleases it is a totalitarian regime that cares little about international opinion or domestic opinion. The only defenders China has are the OhOhs of the world who are the modern day equivalents of Neville Chamberlain.

  13. #63
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    ...the greater the oppression the Uyghers suffer, the more likely they are to be responsive to calls for Jihad from Saudi/Gulf financiers...it appears few others are supporting their cause for increased internal freedoms, let alone independence as Eastern Turkestan...known in Beijing as Western Hanistan...

  14. #64
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
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    Historically, chasing imperial quests always comes back to haunt in one form or another.

  15. #65
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    Of course ameristan will do as it pleases it is a totalitarian regime that cares little about international opinion or domestic opinion.
    FIFY

    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat View Post
    the greater the oppression the Uyghers suffer,
    What's the % of the ethnic group allegedly "oppressed" in the MSM which our japanese concubine publishes here. What's the % of ameristanis incarcerated in comparison?

    Some perspective of the government actions would lead some to conclude that the Chinese are leading in the easy come easy go stakes.
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  16. #66
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    ...^red herrings with a side order of nonsense...

  17. #67
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Terrorists and freedom fighters eh, so similar to some.
    I’m sure this one was a real bad-ass.

    Elderly Uyghur Woman Dies in Detention in Xinjiang ‘Political Re-Education Camp’

    An elderly Uyghur woman has died from health complications after being incarcerated at a political “re-education camp” in Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), according to sources.


    Since April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” views have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    A source recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service that the elderly Uyghur woman died at the Yamachang camp in Bayanday township, in Ili Kazakh’s Ghulja (Yining) county, as a result of being “unable to cope with the pressure and terrible conditions” at the facility.


    The source, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, was unable to provide the name or age of the woman, but said she was one of more than 20 relatives of a baker in Bayanday named Sawurjan, whose two sons run a bakery in Egypt.


    All of Sawurjan’s relatives have been detained and sent for re-education because of the sons’ connections abroad, he added.


    An official who answered the phone in No. 3 village said no women from his village had died, but noted that “there was someone who died in a nearby village.”


    The official said he did not know the name of the woman, but that she died in March while being held in either No. 5 or No. 6 Village.


    “I think she lived in the Orman area,” the official said, adding that “she was an old lady.”


    When asked whether the woman was related to Sawurjan, the official said she was not, adding that the baker lives in Bayanday’s No. 2 Village.


    When asked about a woman from Orman who died in March, an official at the No. 2 Village government building provided RFA with a telephone number for one of her family members, but repeated calls to the number went unanswered.


    Much of the confusion about the woman’s fate stems from the secrecy of the re-education internment process, which falls outside the court system and, unlike judicial sentences, is not reported by local or state media, both tightly controlled in China.



    Elderly detainees


    Reports suggest that authorities have no age limit for incarcerating Uyghurs in the XUAR, and countless numbers of the elderly are being held in re-education camps throughout the region—many of whom have been targeted for taking part in a pilgrimage to Mecca or are retired officials who have joined a local mosque community as part of their Islamic faith.


    Others have been thrown into camps after speaking out about the detention of their family members.


    Sources say the elderly face rough treatment at their hands of their overseers in the camps and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities—circumstances that can lead to severe complications for people already vulnerable to health issues associated with age.


    In January, sources told RFA that detention centers in Korla (Kuerle), the seat of central Xinjiang’s Bayin’gholin Mongol (Bayinguoleng Menggu) Autonomous Prefecture, are “completely full” and have been turning detainees away because they could not accommodate them.


    One source quoted a friend who was admitted to a camp in the area describing cells that had previously held eight people being made to accommodate 14 inmates, who “were not allowed pillows” and “had to lay on their sides because there was not enough room to lay flat,” let alone space to turn over or stretch their legs.



    Camp network


    China's central government authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but local officials in many parts of the region have in RFA telephone interviews forthrightly described sending significant numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and even described overcrowding in some facilities.


    Maya Wang of the New York-based Human Rights Watch told The Guardian in January that estimates of XUAR residents who had spent time in the camps went as high as 800,000, while at least one Uyghur exile group estimates that up to 1 million Uyghurs have been detained throughout the region since April 2017, and some Uyghur activists say nearly every Uyghur household has been affected by the campaign.


    Last month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Chris Smith—the chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China—called on U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to visit Xinjiang and gather information on the detention of Uyghurs, which they termed "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”


    China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.


    While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.



    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018164854.html

  18. #68
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    Are they the same Uighurs as reported here?

    https://teakdoor.com/speakers-corner/...ml#post3765295 (Al Jazeera Documentaries)

    The Guantanamo 22
    How a group of men from China's Uighur community were sold in Afghanistan and imprisoned in Guantanamo as terrorists.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes...112137598.html

  19. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    according to sources
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    A source recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    The source, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, was unable to provide the name or age of the woman
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    An official who answered the phone
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    The official said
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Reports sugges
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    experts outside China sa
    9 unnamed "sources".

    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Chris Smith—the chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on Chin
    A source with an agenda? An article from an ameristani government site.

    Not even a 0 on my factual scale.

  20. #70
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    China Locks Up, Tortures Muslims in 'Re-education Camps'

    Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang are detaining Muslim ethnic minorities en masse and subjecting them to torture and brainwashing to honor the ruling Chinese Communist Party and renounce the tenets of their faith, rights groups warned on Wednesday.


    "The authorities force the detainees to accept this so-called education, which is political indoctrination," Human Rights Watch (HRW) China researcher Maya Wang told RFA on Wednesday. "Before they eat, they have to wish [President] Xi Jinping good health, or thank the government and thank the party, before they are allowed to eat anything."


    "They are forced to study Chinese characters, and anyone who challenges this arbitrary detention is punished, some physically, some by being locked up in isolation with no food or water," she said.


    Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, which represents the ethnic minority Uyghur group overseas, said many detainees are closely monitored using the latest facial recognition technology, which is believed to predict a person's actions through the analysis of micro-expressions.


    "They use surveillance video of micro-expressions to analyze what people are thinking or feeling," Raxit said. "By looking at changes in these expressions each day ... they can tell whether the person is likely to engage in acts of collective or individual protest."


    He said the consequences for not engaging with this process can be dire.


    "People have been tortured to death, while others have been beaten to death, or prevented from sleeping, or refused food or water," Raxit said. "Either that or they do whatever would be most humiliating to that person's psychological profile. Sometimes they humiliate them physically, and have been known to employ electric batons."



    ‘Secularize and modernize’


    Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, says, "The state basically sees southern Xinjiang as a big problem area and a concentration of difficult-to-control populations."


    "They want people in regular wage jobs and also in different places in Xinjiang where they are under much more control and in very nonreligious settings," he told the rights group RDSL Monitor in an interview this week. "They want people to secularize and to modernize."


    Murat, another Muslim from Xinjiang, told RFA that he was similarly incarcerated, beaten and tortured in a "re-education center."


    “Political education centers are generally like prisons," Murat told RFA. "Electric shocks, beatings, and humiliation all take place in there. It's very cruel."


    He said inmates are under constant video surveillance.


    "Nobody talks; there is a camera on the ceiling and even in the toilet," he said.


    Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” views have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.


    Earlier this month, an official in Xinjiang's Qaraqash (in Chinese, Moyu) county, said that nearly half of the population of his village is currently detained in re-education camps.


    China's central government authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but local officials in many parts of the region have in RFA telephone interviews forthrightly described sending significant numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and even described overcrowding in some facilities.


    Citing credible reports, lawmakers Marco Rubio and Chris Smith, who head the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said recently that as many as 500,000 to a million people are or have been detained in the reeducation camps, calling it ”the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”


    Zenz estimates that the number “could be closer to 1.1 million, which equates to 10-11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the region."




    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018150827.html

  21. #71
    I'm in Jail

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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post

    many detainees are closely monitored using the latest facial recognition technology, which is believed to predict a person's actions through the analysis of micro-expressions.
    I wonder what Paul Eckman thinks about this ? Probably horrified...

  22. #72
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Uighurs live with fear, trauma as families remain stranded in China's growing 're-education camps'

    Last year, when Almas Nizamidin returned to Urumqi — the capital city of China's far-west region of Xinjiang — he was on a mission to find his wife who had been taken from her home by several plain-clothes policemen under no official charge.

    The 27-year-old construction worker from Adelaide, who became an Australian citizen in 2014 after leaving China in 2009, flew back immediately after hearing the news of his wife, only to find the city he grew up in completely unrecognisable.


    "It looked like an occupation," he said, “There were lines of tanks on the streets, and a police blockhouse every 100 metres where police officers scan people's IDs and the contents of their phones," he said.



    More. Uighurs live with fear, trauma as families remain stranded in China's growing 're-education camps' - ABC News

  23. #73
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    One in 10 Uyghur Residents of Xinjiang Township Jailed or Detained in ‘Re-Education Camp’

    More than ten percent of the inhabitants of a mostly Uyghur-populated township in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been jailed or are detained in “political re-education camps,” according to local officials.

    Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” views have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout the XUAR, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.

    The head of the judicial department of Tuwet township, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture’s Qaraqash (Moyu) county, recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service that more than one out of every 10 of the township’s 32,000 residents had been imprisoned or detained in a re-education camp since April last year.

    “There are 1,721 people in re-education camps,” said the head of the department, who gave his name as Rozimemet.

    “The number of people sent to prison is 1,731,” he added.

    An officer at the Chinibagh village police station, in the seat of Qaraqash county, recently told RFA that around 40 percent of the more than 1,700 residents of his home village of Yengisheher had been detained in re-education camps.

    When asked if authorities in Tuwet township had been tasked with attaining a quota for jailing or detaining 40 percent of residents, Rozimemet said they had not, but he acknowledged that they had been given a target, without elaborating.


    Camp network

    China's central government authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in the XUAR, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but local officials in many parts of the region have in RFA telephone interviews forthrightly described sending significant numbers of Uyghurs to the camps and even described overcrowding in some facilities.

    Citing credible reports, lawmakers Marco Rubio and Chris Smith, who head the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said recently that as many as 500,000 to a million people are or have been detained in the re-education camps, calling it ”the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”

    Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, said the number “could be closer to 1.1 million, which equates to 10-11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the region."

    China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.

    While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.


    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018132506.html

  24. #74
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    US Government Holds Hearing on Human Rights Crisis in East Turkistan

    This week, Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), convened a hearing on the . The hearing looked at the serious and deteriorating human rights situation faced by Uyghurs, examined the Chinese government’s efforts to build the world’s most advanced police state in East Turkistan and explored policy options to address these issues within U.S.-China relations.


    Witnesses at the hearing testified to the existence of “political reeducation” centers or camps throughout East Turkistan where over 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic people are held and subjected to torture, medical neglect and maltreatment, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and other forms of abuse resulting in the death of some detainees.


    Those who testified included U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, the chair of the hearing, who spoke about serious and deteriorating human rights situation faced by Uyghur Muslims and members of other Muslim ethnic minority groups and highlighted that U.S. and multi-national corporations are selling products to the Chinese government that assist in its repression and human rights violations in East Turkistan. He also presses the US Commerce Department on how they could prevent companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific from selling technology like DNA sequencers that directly correspond to human rights violations against Uyghurs.

    Ambassador Kelley Currie, U.S. representative at the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), spoke about how the Chinese government of President Xi Jinping has been strengthening its persecution of Muslims since April of last year, calling it a counterterrorism measure. Ambassador Currie testified that the United States have been trying to advance the Uyghur cause at the United Nations, but very few countries are ready to support them, due to China’s political and economic pressure. She also noted with great concern that China was attempting to redefine human rights and alter the UN system.


    Senator Angus King compared the Western silence about China today to the silence in the 1930s about the Holocaust.
    Gulchehra Hoja, Uyghur Service journalist, Radio Free Asia spoke about her experience covering Uyghur issues in East Turkistan while dealing with her own personal issues having family and friends detained in internment camps. She said more than 20 members of her family remain unaccounted for after being taken away by Chinese authorities last year. She further stated that Uyghur families across the world are experiencing similar heartbreak and that almost everyone in the diaspora have had friends or relatives disappear.


    Historian Rian Thum, a scholar of East Turkistan at Loyola University, New Orleans, presented photographic evidence of how the regime is building new “transformation through education” camps and expanding the existing ones. He also insisted that, should all these camps be closed tomorrow, the problem of Xinjiang would not be solved. Even outside the camps, the province remains a police state, “the most closely surveilled place on the planet,” worse than North Korea and comparable only to China in the worst years of the Cultural Revolution.


    Jessica Batke, senior editor of ChinaFile, reported on the atrocities perpetrated in the “transformation through education” camps where one million Uyghurs are detained because of their faith, and denounced the successful campaign by China to prevent or sideline discussions of the Uyghur situation at the United Nations.


    Members of the Commission also urged the Administration to consider the application of Global Magnitsky Sanctions against senior government and Party officials in East Turkistan responsible for these rights violations, including Party Secretary Chen Quanguo.

    MORE World Uyghur Congress | WEEKLY BRIEF ? JULY 27

  25. #75
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    US Government Holds Hearing on Human Rights Crisis in East Turkistan


    This week, Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), convened a hearing on the . The hearing looked at the serious and deteriorating human rights situation faced by Uyghurs, examined the Chinese government’s efforts to build the world’s most advanced police state in East Turkistan and explored policy options to address these issues within U.S.-China relations.


    Witnesses at the hearing testified to the existence of “political reeducation” centers or camps throughout East Turkistan where over 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic people are held and subjected to torture, medical neglect and maltreatment, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and other forms of abuse resulting in the death of some detainees.


    Those who testified included U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, the chair of the hearing, who spoke about serious and deteriorating human rights situation faced by Uyghur Muslims and members of other Muslim ethnic minority groups and highlighted that U.S. and multi-national corporations are selling products to the Chinese government that assist in its repression and human rights violations in East Turkistan. He also presses the US Commerce Department on how they could prevent companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific from selling technology like DNA sequencers that directly correspond to human rights violations against Uyghurs.

    Ambassador Kelley Currie, U.S. representative at the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), spoke about how the Chinese government of President Xi Jinping has been strengthening its persecution of Muslims since April of last year, calling it a counterterrorism measure. Ambassador Currie testified that the United States have been trying to advance the Uyghur cause at the United Nations, but very few countries are ready to support them, due to China’s political and economic pressure. She also noted with great concern that China was attempting to redefine human rights and alter the UN system.


    Senator Angus King compared the Western silence about China today to the silence in the 1930s about the Holocaust.
    Gulchehra Hoja, Uyghur Service journalist, Radio Free Asia spoke about her experience covering Uyghur issues in East Turkistan while dealing with her own personal issues having family and friends detained in internment camps. She said more than 20 members of her family remain unaccounted for after being taken away by Chinese authorities last year. She further stated that Uyghur families across the world are experiencing similar heartbreak and that almost everyone in the diaspora have had friends or relatives disappear.


    Historian Rian Thum, a scholar of East Turkistan at Loyola University, New Orleans, presented photographic evidence of how the regime is building new “transformation through education” camps and expanding the existing ones. He also insisted that, should all these camps be closed tomorrow, the problem of Xinjiang would not be solved. Even outside the camps, the province remains a police state, “the most closely surveilled place on the planet,” worse than North Korea and comparable only to China in the worst years of the Cultural Revolution.


    Jessica Batke, senior editor of ChinaFile, reported on the atrocities perpetrated in the “transformation through education” camps where one million Uyghurs are detained because of their faith, and denounced the successful campaign by China to prevent or sideline discussions of the Uyghur situation at the United Nations.


    Members of the Commission also urged the Administration to consider the application of Global Magnitsky Sanctions against senior government and Party officials in East Turkistan responsible for these rights violations, including Party Secretary Chen Quanguo.



    MORE World Uyghur Congress | WEEKLY BRIEF ? JULY 27

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