Thread: China's Mass Detention of Xinjiang's Ethnic Minorities Shows No Sign of Let-up

...^serpentine diversion alert!...

Originally Posted by OhOh

My understanding of basic legal rights is that the accuser has to prove and gain acceptance by their peers, in a court of law, of their allegations.

Possible scenarios are tested, juries are requested to deliver a considered verdict based on the proffered evidence.

If they fail the accused is released and their reputation is unsullied. If they succeed the accused is sentenced by the judge according to the severity of the crime as laid down in a tariff.

You "overwhelming opinion" has not been proven anywhere. Are you suggesting that if one does a search of the number of "articles" available on the internet, place the articles into piles - those that support a viewpoint and those that don't and the pile with the most articles, ,it becomes a internet fact and hence "overwhelming opinion" leading to a legal ruling?

As I have already posted even if I do present alternate "articles" that doesn't necessarily make them facts. By your definition that by posting "articles based on news reports and first hand accounts" one, from whichever viewpoint, is "talking out one's arse".



What has the Russian President to do with Chinese citizens being allegedly arrested by Chinese authorities in China?

Have your ameristani government purveyors of propaganda, inquired with the Chinese authorities to ascertain what they are accused of, what was the results of their trial was and where they are being held?

As many here seem to hold, just except your unproven allegations once again.

Translation:

You must only believe Big Brother.

China only tells the truth.

Although in reality, OhOh is a gullible moron.

FFS even China is admitting the use of these 're-education' camps.

Originally Posted by Neo

FFS even China is admitting the use of these 're-education' camps.

That will have him scrabbling for the China Daily editorials.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

That will have him scrabbling for the China Daily editorials.

Here are links to two articles. One from Reuters and the second from The print, an Indian publisher. Both express the view that Tibet has florished un the Chinese but lament the passing of the idylic Buddhist state of sprirtual leaders, slavery, poor health, education and opportunity. They also mention of the changes in the last decades.

It depends what you wish for the citizens of China, rural, destitute, uneducated, slaves or progress on so many levels. As we are all aware the intrusion in private affairs are being expanded worldwide. It is the way of life for many.

Modernising Tibet masks deep contradictions

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-c...6652KU20100708

Time has come to acknowledge that Tibet has vastly improved under Chinese rule

https://theprint.in/opinion/time-has-come-to-acknowledge-that-tibet-has-vastly-improved-under-chinese-rule/97172/

Lastly for 'arry a recent article:

Tibet expo yields fruitful achievements

Tibet expo yields fruitful achievements - EUROPE - Chinadaily.com.cn

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

That will have him scrabbling for the China Daily editorials.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Tibet expo yields fruitful achievements - EUROPE - Chinadaily.com.cn

......

The link from Reuters does more than "lament the passing of Buddhist state", etc.

You really should try and read past the first line, and get a dictionary for the big words.

You look like a fucking spoon fed chinky stooge, you idiot.

The unrest sparked waves of protest across Tibetan areas, which more than two years on has failed to subside despite a heavy military and police presence and harsh punishment for those who question Beijing’s authority.
The security belies China’s claims to have won over Tibetans.
“To this day, two years later, they still need to use military and police forces to control the situation. Does it sound like they’ve won the hearts of the people?” asked prominent Tibetan blogger Woeser.

As for the opinion piece from the senile wobbly, it isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Xinjiang Authorities Secretly Transferring Uyghur Detainees to Jails Throughout China

Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are secretly transferring Uyghur detainees to prisons in Heilongjiang province and other areas throughout the country to address an “overflow” in the region’s overcrowded political “re-education camps,” according to officials.

Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas 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.

Sources say detainees face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers in the camps and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities.

While investigating claims from members of the Uyghur exile community, official sources in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Kona Sheher (Shufu) county confirmed to RFA’s Uyghur Service that authorities have been moving Uyghurs from detention centers in the XUAR to prisons in other parts of China.

“Based on the seriousness of their crime, inmates are being transferred to other major prisons in the region and also to inner China,” an officer at the police department in Kona Sheher’s Tashmiliq township told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“I think they are being transferred to inner China because they can be educated better there, and another reason is that since there are too many prisoners here and we are experiencing an overflow of inmates.”

The officer said that authorities began relocating Uyghur inmates to other parts of China at “the beginning of this year.”

“We have a political officer named Najmidin Bedelhaji who took some inmates to a Chinese city last month, but most of the time a unit of the Public Security Bureau escorts them there,” he said.

“Yasin Abla, the deputy chief of the county police department, and the local head of the Public Security Bureau, is the person in charge of carrying out the transfers.”

The prisoner transfers add another layer of opacity to extrajudicial detention in the XUAR, where family members are rarely provided with information about why their loved ones are arrested and where they are held.


Tailai Prison

Among the facilities that Uyghur detainees have been taken to is a prison with a maximum capacity of 4,300 inmates in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province’s Tailai county, where officials confirmed a transfer had occurred in recent weeks.

When asked how many detainees were transferred to Tailai Prison, an official with the county Political Consultative Conference told RFA, “I don’t know the exact number,” but said they had been sent there “around one month ago,” citing information he had received from local residents.

A secretary at the Tailai County Government office, who gave his name as Zhao, also said he was aware that Uyghur detainees had been sent to the county prison, but was unsure of how many.

“A part of the group came in a week ago,” he said, before referring further questions to Tailai Prison officials.

A Han Chinese resident of Tailai county told RFA the Uyghur detainees were sent to the local prison as part of a “prisoner exchange.”

“The prisoners from Xinjiang were transferred to our county prison, and the prisoners in our prison were sent to Xinjiang,” said the resident, who asked to remain unnamed.

“It seems the Uyghur prisoners were removed to prevent unrest in Xinjiang. As a result, the prison guards [here] are demanding a pay raise, citing the risks they now face at their work.”

According to the resident, Tailai Prison normally interns prisoners who have been sentenced to 15 years or more in jail for serious offenses.

“I believe the prisoner swap has been completed,” she said, adding that she had learned about the transfer from the family members of guards at Tailai Prison.

“The People's Armed Police chartered trains and delivered the prisoners for the swap.”


Train ticket moratorium

Information about the prisoner swap came amid a Sept. 26 report by the Urumqi Evening News that sales of train tickets will be suspended indefinitely from Oct. 22.

"The Xinjiang railway administrative departments will stop selling tickets on all passenger services leaving Xinjiang, and also for intraregional services, from Oct. 22, 2018," the newspaper reported.

"A separate announcement will be made regarding when ticket sales will be resumed," it said.

Meanwhile, several anonymous sources in the XUAR gave anecdotal evidence to RFA suggesting that the authorities are preparing to move large numbers of prisoners in and out of the region in the coming weeks, estimating that as many as 300,000 inmates could be transported across Xinjiang’s road and rail networks.

"The prisons are overflowing all across Xinjiang, that's one reason [for the ticket sales ban]," an anonymous source told RFA. "The other reason is secrecy; because a lot of the people in the camps, such as the police, the administrators or the workers ... have connections with the local population."

"Some of the staff in the jails have close relatives who have been locked up there, and they leak information to the outside world," the source said.

The same source said the authorities are stepping up efforts to impose an information blackout around the camps, many of which have been identified by online researchers using satellite imagery.

"There was a directive about strengthening management of the re-education camps," the source said. "There are a lot of tangled relationships in the camps, with the friends, relatives and former colleagues of camp staff locked up in there."

"They are now bringing in administrators from outside the local areas, and at the same time they are transporting the prisoners outside of their local area," the source said.


Thousands transported

An overseas source who asked to be identified only as a Muslim, said several thousand ethnic Muslims were transported from Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasaake) Autonomous Prefecture’s Ghulja (Yining) city near the border with Kazakhstan, to Altay, in the same prefecture, while the inmates at Altay were sent to detention facilities in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture.

The source said Uyghurs from Kashgar and Aksu in the south of the region were meanwhile being transferred to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or bingtuan, prison facilities in Ili.

The authorities have also begun recruiting large numbers of personnel from the western region of Gansu in a bid to replace local staff and guards in the camps, the source said.

In Ili's Kunes (Xinyuan) county, several hundred army and police personnel were dispatched to escort several thousand inmates of a "re-education camp for extremists" to Yining railway station, where they were put on a train for an unknown destination.

Passers-by were banned from taking photos, private vehicles were banned from the streets and businesses along the route were ordered to close during the operation, a source in the region said.

And a separate source said that large numbers of people had been converging on the regional capital, Urumqi, in recent days aboard buses with the windows blacked out.

"It's because there are so many of them locked up; they are being taken to other parts of China, one busload at a time," she said.



Route closure

Meanwhile, the Aksu Highway Administration shut down the Tielimaiti tunnel along with a large section of nearby highway, citing a large snowfall in the area, according to a notice of closure shown to RFA.

"Owing to recent weather conditions, the section of highway near the Tielimaiti Tunnel has seen a large snowfall over a wide area ... and are unsuitable for traffic," the notice said.

National highway G217, an arterial and, in parts, a former military restricted road linking the northern and southern parts of Xinjiang across the Tianshan mountains and the Taklamakan Desert, was therefore announced closed until the end of April 2019, it said.

"Traffic is prohibited to all vehicles," the notice, signed by Kucha and Aksu county highway agencies and traffic police, said. "We apologize for any inconvenience caused."

A source in Xinjiang said the Duku section of the highway linking Dushanzi and Kucha could have been ordered closed to enable the secret transportation of prisoners across the region, or their transfer to railway stations for transportation to other parts of China.

Another source said it may be needed to send armed police reinforcements to Ili and Kashgar, or to send detainees to other provinces.

An official who answered the phone at the Xinjiang regional government press office in Urumqi on Monday declined to comment when contacted by RFA, saying it was the wrong number.

Repeated calls to the police department, local police stations and guesthouses in Guma county (in Chinese, Pishan) in Xinjiang's Hotan prefecture rang unanswered during office hours on Monday.



Camp network

Western governments have increasingly drawn attention to re-education camps in the XUAR in recent months as media reports detail the stories of Uyghurs who have been detained in the facilities.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert recently said the U.S. government was "deeply troubled" by the crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, adding that “credible reports indicate that individuals sent by Chinese authorities to detention centers since April 2017 number at least in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions.”

The official warned that “indiscriminate and disproportionate controls on ethnic minorities’ expressions of their cultural and religious identities have the potential to incite radicalization and recruitment to violence.”

A group of U.S. lawmakers, in a recent letter, asked President Donald Trump’s administration to “swiftly act” to sanction Chinese government officials and entities complicit in or directing the “ongoing human rights crisis” in Xinjiang.

The position of China's central government authorities has evolved from denying that large numbers of Uyghurs have been incarcerated in camps to disputing that the facilities are political re-education camps. Beijing now describes the camps as educational centers.

Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the re-education camps, which equates to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the region.

Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, called the reported prisoner transfers “China's attempt to eliminate the Uyghur detainees through cultural genocide coupled with ethnic cleansing.”

China’s treatment of Uyghurs in the XUAR amounts to “crimes against humanity,” he said, urging the international community to “urgently respond” to the situation there.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018171100.html

Ten or 11 percent ?
They may not be killing them, but they are almost literally decimating them.

Decimate :

verb: decimate kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.

• 
  
  • drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something).
  
  
• 
  historical
  
  kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group.

...I understand their prison gruel is porridge-based...

Growing Evidence Forced China to Acknowledge Xinjiang Political ‘Re-education Camps’: Researcher

After more than a year of denying the existence of political “re-education camps” in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), a vast buildout of a system housing as many as a million Uyghurs has forced Beijing to acknowledge the facilities and justify them to the international community, according to a camp researcher based in Canada.

Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas 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.

While Beijing initially denied the existence of such camps, the Uyghur chairman of Xinjiang’s provincial government, Shohrat Zakir, told China’s official Xinhua news agency earlier this month that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs.

According to Zakir, Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslims in the region are taught Mandarin at the camps, as well as important vocational skills and lessons on Chinese law, all while being provided with free meals in comfortable living conditions, and that they are free to come and go as they like.

Reporting by RFA and other media organizations, however, has shown that those in the camps are detained against their will, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities.

Shawn Zhang, a law student at the University of British Columbia, has compiled a blog list of 59 re-education camps he confirmed the existence of by researching government tenders and using information found in the documents to locate the facilities through satellite imagery on Google Maps. He has also identified 16 sites he believes to be camps, but is seeking additional documentation that confirms them as such.

Speaking to RFA’s Uyghur Service, Zhang said that growing evidence of the camps, which are believed to hold or have held more than 1 million people, have made Chinese authorities “see that they can’t hide it” from the international community, and led Beijing to change its tune in mid-October.

“It’s different than 30 or 40 years ago when there was no internet and no satellite images, whereas now you have so many satellite images and the Chinese government also published so many documents that have descriptions of these camps,” he said.

“They see that it is very difficult to hide all this information now, so I think they find that denying it maybe makes them look even more suspicious because they [appear to] want to hide the facts. For the Chinese government, maybe it is more effective to admit to these camps but to use some excuses such as counter-terrorism to justify it.”

Tracking camps

Zhang told RFA that he became interested in tracking down re-education camps in late April, after reading about Uyghurs living overseas whose family members had gone missing back in the XUAR, but said he was initially skeptical.

“So I did some research myself, searching for keywords through Google, and I found some tender notices about this kind of camp,” he said.

“Some of [the notices] had locations, so I followed the information and I found some of the camps … Usually in Xinjiang’s rural areas, there aren’t very large construction sites, so when you see that you can tell it is a camp. In most of them there are wire fences inside the camps in front of buildings. It’s very rare in Xinjiang that these kinds of buildings will have wire fences surrounding … the entrances.”

Zhang noted that according to China’s official explanation, there are only re-education camps at the county level and above in the XUAR, but he said that through his research he had found that “even villages and small towns” have detention and political indoctrination centers.

“You need to pay good attention to detail, because there isn’t much information in government documents,” he said, adding that the camps can be difficult to locate.

“The Chinese government often builds the camps in the suburbs. These suburbs are often newly built, so the streets have no names on Google Maps … You need to find the names of the streets from the government documents.”

But while Zhang has located dozens of camps since he began documenting them earlier this year, he said the facilities are becoming much more difficult to find.

“The problem is that the Chinese government is deleting all information about the re-education camps from the internet, so I haven’t been able to find a tender notice since at least August or so,” he explained.

Growing scrutiny

Western governments have increasingly drawn attention to the camp network, where Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained—equating to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the XUAR.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert recently said the U.S. government was “deeply troubled” by the crackdown on Uyghurs, while U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley described it earlier this month as “the largest internment of civilians in the world today” and “straight out of George Orwell,” during a speech at the Chiefs of Defense Conference Dinner in Washington.

Next week in Geneva, China is likely to face a grilling on the Uyghur camps from some Western countries at the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights record.

According to Zhang, by acknowledging the existence of the camps, but portraying them in a way that suggests they have been established to help improve the lives of ethnic Uyghurs in the XUAR, the government is putting on a “performance to convince outsiders.”

But Zhang said that according to what he has uncovered in his research, “it is almost impossible to provide such activities” as vocational training, because the camps lack the infrastructure to do so.

Instead, he said, the camps serve as indoctrination centers that the Chinese government is using to achieve its “ultimate goal” of “fully assimilating Uyghurs into the Chinese identity.”

“The Chinese government thinks that separatism in Xinjiang is a result of Uyghurs’ own identity,” he said.

“When one [minority] group keeps their own identity apart from the Chinese people, the Chinese government may think it is very dangerous. They think it will lead to separatism. So I think their ultimate goal is to transform Uyghur people into ordinary Chinese.”

But Zhang cautioned against the approach of forcing Uyghurs to conform to Chinese culture.

“In my opinion, this kind of coercion hasn’t succeeded in the past, because it is impossible to convince a group of people when they aren’t voluntarily taking part,” he said.

“It may lead to more instability or even more violence because when so many people suffer this kind of tragedy, some become more extremist.”

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018173222.html

Only telling us what we already know, which is that the chinkies are lying.

Originally Posted by misskit

housing as many as a million Uyghurs

Still peddling unsubstantiated hearsay I see.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Still peddling unsubstantiated hearsay I see.

You are the only one peddling propaganda, you simpering sycophant.

All you can do is peddle the bullshit chinky line.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You are the only one peddling propaganda, you simpering sycophant.

All you can do is peddle the bullshit chinky line.

Any facts to enlighten us with?

Thought not just retching up MK's ameristani, RFA propaganda..

Have the chinkies fessed up about their arrested spy yet?

He must be due in court soon.

Can't you find *anything* in your state propaganda? Like he was an innocent tourist going to see famous Belgian waffles?

You know the Chinese, they take a while to answer. They have laws and courts procedures, such things as we know may take their own ways.

Better than tweeting something and immediately having to ridicule oneself with a denial. Although some use the "miss spoke"excuse and many actually believe them.

Funny that, normally you can't stop posting chinky propaganda but they don't want their own people to know they're a bunch of thieving bastards.

Hundreds of Children of Detained Uyghurs Held in ‘Closed School’ in Kashgar Prefecture

As many as 500 children of detained Uyghurs have been placed in a “closed school” in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture, in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), according to a source in exile, who said his two younger brothers are among those held.

A young Uyghur man named Jesur left his home in Kashgar’s Yarkand (Shache) county for Turkey in 2014 and shortly afterwards, in July of that year, Chinese authorities fired on residents of the county’s Elishku township who were protesting the detention of a dozen Uyghur women for praying overnight at a local mosque, killing what Uyghur exile groups say was as many as 2,000 people.

A crackdown by police in the county following the incident led to mass jailings of Uyghurs and a lockdown on communication in and out of the area, and Jesur lost contact with his family.

Jesur, now 23, told RFA’s Uyghur Service that he recently received a video in which his eight- and 10-year-old brothers tearfully informed him that several members of their family had been jailed or sent to political “re-education camps,” where authorities have detained Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas since April 2017.

His brothers said that they had been placed in a “closed school” for children of Uyghur detainees in their home township of Kachung and appealed to him to help free them.

“I learned that my two younger brothers are in a closed school in Kachung township,” he said, adding that there are “approximately 500 children” held in the facility.

“The children are not allowed to have any contact with outside. If relatives want to see them, they must obtain an approval letter from the local police.”

Additionally, Jesur said, his 45-year-old father Mahmut Sayim, 43-year-old mother Buhelchem Tursun, 25-year-old sister Buranem Mahmut, 20-year-old brother Nureli Mahmut, and uncles Qasim Sayim, Hekim Sayim, and Ablimit Sayim, as well as their wives, are among some 30 members of his extended family who have been sent to prison or re-education camps.

Jesur said his father was given a lengthy prison sentence for having two children outside of the allotted family planning allowance of two to each ethnic minority family and failing to pay a fine of 100,000 yuan (U.S. $14,420) for each child over the limit. His uncles also received long jail terms, he said, although it was unclear what they had been sentenced for.

“I learned my father was arrested … after [the Islamic holy month of] Ramadan [which ended on June 14] last year, and my mother was taken away in March of this year, though I don’t know the reason for her arrest,” he said.

“It is not clear if the rest of my family are in prison or not, but our house is padlocked from the outside.”

According to Jesur, his brothers appeared “afraid and longing for their parents,” and he told RFA that he is now haunted by the video.

“I watched the video in which my younger brothers spoke out to me in tears and now the scene constantly appears in my mind,” he said.

“It makes me so sad and distracted that I keep misplacing things all the time … It has come to the point that I can’t even remember what I’ve been doing all day, or what I should be doing next.”

Repeated calls to the police station in Kachung and relevant government departments to verify Jesur’s claims went unanswered, or staff members hung up when informed that they were being contacted by RFA.

But after discovering a fundraising post online by the Kachung Township Party Propaganda Department that sought to raise money for “students facing financial difficulty,” RFA’s reporters were able to contact a Chinese staff member there who confirmed the existence of the school, which he said housed “more than 300 children … [from] Kachung and surrounding areas.”

“We collected all these children and placed them in the school to help them,” the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They are all primary school pupils from years one through six. They are all housed in the school, as their parents are in re-education camps.”

The staff member said that the children need “various forms of support,” including basic educational study kits and second-hand clothing—particularly warm clothing for the winter.

When asked about conditions at the school, the staff member was unable to provide additional information, but said that “there is the possibility that some orphans have been relocated to similar facilities” in other parts of China, due to overcrowding.


Children left behind

While Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, the Uyghur chairman of Xinjiang’s provincial government, Shohrat Zakir, told China’s official Xinhua news agency last month that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs.

Reporting by RFA’s Uyghur Service and other media organizations, however, has shown that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities.

An Oct. 21 report by the official Global Times promoting the camps as “training centers” also included photos of children in the XUAR’s Hotan (Hetian) prefecture whose parents had been placed in camps, and claimed that they are warmly cared for at special “schools,” where they engage in educational courses and other activities.

But sources have told RFA that Uyghur children whose parents have been sent to camps are regularly sent to orphanages that are seriously overcrowded, calling the conditions “terrible,” with children “locked up like farm animals in a shed.”

Others say that while the orphanages received substantial cash donations from the public, “only a very little is spent on the children,” and that the facilities save money by giving the kids meat only once a week, while the rest of the time they are provided with “rice soup.”

Jesur told RFA that his worst fear is that he may never learn what becomes of his younger brothers.

“I think about my brothers constantly, as they don’t have my parents to look after them and the authorities may send them to eastern China, where they will be brought up like Han Chinese,” he said.

“That is my biggest worry. I know it is impossible for me to return, but I … wish that I was able to take care of them as a big brother should. As my anger towards the Chinese authorities has grown … I decided to tell the world the tragic story of how the government has treated my family.”



https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018162416.html

US Lawmakers Unveil Bill Calling For Release of Uyghurs From China’s Detention Camps

U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Wednesday calling for the release of over a million ethnic Uyghurs detained by China in re-education camps and urging Washington to study the scope of Beijing’s crackdown on the Muslim minority group.

In a press release announcing the launch of the bipartisan bill, in which Republican Representative Chris Smith was joined by Democrat Thomas Suozzi and eight other members of Congress, Smith said the internment of Uyghurs in camps in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region “should be treated by the international community as a crime against humanity.”

“The Chinese government’s creation of a vast system of what can only be called concentration camps cannot be tolerated in the 21st century,” said Smith, co-chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China.

“The brutal, religious based persecution of the Uyghurs in China is alarming,” Congressman Suozzi added in prepared remarks on Wednesday. “Xinjiang province has become nothing short of a police state.”

Among other recommendations, the proposed legislation calls on the U.S. Secretary of State to create a special position at the State Department to coordinate the U.S. response to China’s abuses in Xinjiang and to sanction Chinese officials responsible for the crackdown.

The U.S. established a Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues in 2002 in response to repression in that Chinese-ruled region.

The bill also calls on the FBI to track and report on the harassment by China of Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals studying or working in the United States.

'Historic significance'

Speaking on Wednesday to RFA’s Uyghur Service, Dolkun Isa—president of the Germany-based exile World Uyghur Congress—called the introduction of the bill a measure of “historic significance at a time when the Chinese government is committing ethnic cleansing against the Uyghur people.”

“This is a powerful step taken by the U.S. to address the crimes against humanity that are taking place in East Turkestan,” Isa said, using a name preferred by many Uyghurs to refer to their historic homeland.

“I hope this bill will become legislation soon with the support of both Houses of Congress,” Isa said.

Also speaking to RFA on Wednesday, Uyghur human rights advocate and lawyer Nury Turkel—board chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project—called the bill’s introduction “the first time in history a Western government is deliberating a legislative mandate to protect Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in China.”

“On the occasion of this historic day, I call on the other liberal democracies to put in place similar legislative mandates to protect the Uyghur people who are facing an existential threat in China,” Turkel said, adding, “I also urge the other members of Congress to support this bill in the remainder of this legislative session.”

The proposed legislation was introduced a week after the United States, France, Germany, and 10 other Western countries used a session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of China’s human rights record to issue a call on Beijing to close down the political re-education camps.

“We are alarmed by the government of China’s worsening crackdown on Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region," U.S. charge d'affaires Mark Cassayre was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying at the Geneva meeting.

The United States urged China to "abolish all forms of arbitrary detention, including internment camps in Xinjiang, and immediately release the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of individuals detained in these camps,” he said.

In late August, Smith led a bipartisan group of nearly 20 U.S. lawmakers in writing a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, urging them to level sanctions against officials and entities in China deemed responsible for abusing the rights of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the XUAR.

Harsh policies

The lawmakers identified for sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act—created to address human rights abuses by the Putin regime in Russia—XUAR Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo, who has implemented a litany of harsh policies attacking the rights and freedoms of ethnic Uyghur Muslim residents of Xinjiang since he was appointed to run the region in August 2016.

Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas 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.

While Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, the Uyghur chairman of Xinjiang’s provincial government, Shohrat Zakir, told China’s official Xinhua news agency last month that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs.

China’s state media have followed Zakir’s remarks with a massive propaganda campaign promoting the camps, while foreign reporters investigating Xinjiang have reported constant harassment by authorities. Uyghur activists called on China to prove the facilities are for vocational training by opening then up to visitors.

Reporting by RFA’s Uyghur Service and other media organizations has shown that those held in the camps are detained against their will, are subjected to political indoctrination and rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities.

Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the camps—equating to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of Xinjiang.



https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyg...018152204.html

The Chinese Government release a white paper on the subject of:
Cultural Protection and Development in Xinjiang

Available here (8 pages):

Full Text: Cultural Protection and Development in Xinjiang- China.org.cn

A Chinese paper's report.

White paper sets Xinjiang facts straight, cites successes

"Amid ongoing Western accusations against human rights in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China released a white paper on Thursday to explain efforts and achievements in the region's languages, customs, religions and cultural heritage in the past half century.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese central government has attached great importance to documenting and protecting the excellent traditional ethnic cultures in Xinjiang, and ensuring that they are passed on to succeeding generations, the white paper said.

Released by the State Council - China's cabinet, the white paper stressed that ethnic cultures in Xinjiang are an inseparable part of Chinese culture.

Since ancient times, Xinjiang has been home to various ethnic groups, where different ethnic cultures coexist and integrate, it said.

The white paper is a "timely and necessary" move to "correct misunderstandings and ongoing rumors" from foreign media and politicians on the development of Xinjiang, Zhu Weiqun, former head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top political advisory body, told the Global Times on Thursday.

A group of 15 Western ambassadors in Beijing, spearheaded by Canada, is seeking a meeting with the top Xinjiang official for an "explanation" of alleged rights abuses against Uyghurs, Reuters reported Thursday.

Calling the request "rude and unacceptable," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Thursday that China hopes the ambassadors fulfill their responsibility of offering a faithful and comprehensive understanding of China instead of making "unreasonable" request based on hearsay.

"Xinjiang is an open region and we welcome the ambassadors to visit for goodwill reasons," Hua said at the daily briefing on Thursday.

"However, if they are coming with prejudice and vicious motives to interfere in China's domestic affairs, the answer is a resolute no," she said.

Battleground sector

The cultural sector has been a battleground to enhance ethnic identity and unity in the region, Zhu noted.

For a long time, some domestic and foreign forces have been plotting to separate Xinjiang from China, and while they see little chance of succeeding through political or military means, the forces are targeting the cultural sector, said Zhu.

The separatists are spreading two kinds of rumors: Xinjiang's culture is a separate part of Chinese culture, an argument that is contradictory to common sense, and that the Chinese central government is "suppressing or eradicating" cultures in Xinjiang, a narrative that contradicts reality, Zhu said.

The latest accusation comes from a CNN report on Thursday, which said Xinjiang is undergoing "cultural genocide" as Uyghur culture and identity are "altered."

"The 'cultural genocide' accusation is complete nonsense and contradicts reality," Xiong Kunxin, a professor of ethnic studies at Beijing-based Minzu University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Turning a blind eye to the prospering economy and cultures in the region, some Western media and politicians are hyping religious and ethnic issues to gain attention for their political agenda, Xiong said.

China has always believed that religions should make adjustments in a socialist society and play a positive role in society, Xiong noted.

"Religious doctrines and ethnic cultures that fail to comply with the social development will be outdated. It's a natural rule," Xiong stressed.

The white paper, "Cultural Protection and Development in Xinjiang," also offers facts about the preservation of cultural and religious heritage in the region, as well as efforts to improve public services and international exchanges.

At major meetings of China's top legislature and political advisory bodies, interpreting services and transcripts of languages used by ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang are provided. The languages are also used during local elections, in local courts and in the gaokao, or the national college entrance examinations, the white paper said.

Since 2009, Xinjiang has held seven China International Youth Arts festivals, inviting more than 119 art troupes from countries and regions like Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Azerbaijan.

In recent years, Xinjiang has been active in building the core area along the Silk Road Economic Belt, strengthening cultural and scientific and technological exchanges with countries along the Belt, according to the white paper.

From 1985 to 2017, colleges and universities in Xinjiang enrolled 50,000 foreign students, the white paper said.

"Faced with the rude and groundless accusations, China should continue to send a clear voice to prevent rumors and lies from succeeding," Zhu said.

The country should be confident in the region's hard-fought achievements and should always take the initiative in telling the facts of Xinjiang, instead of allowing separatists to set the narrative, Zhu told the Global Times."

White paper sets Xinjiang facts straight, cites successes - Global Times

Originally Posted by OhOh

White paper makes up loads of bollocks to cover up Chinese atrocities and OhOh swallows it whole

FTFY.