Tag: China human rights

Mosques Disappear as China Strives To ‘Build a Beautiful Xinjiang’

The Jiaman mosque in the city of Qira, in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, is hidden behind high walls and Communist Party propaganda signs, leaving passersby with no indication that it is home to a religious site.

Qira, China: The Jiaman mosque in the city of Qira, in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, is hidden behind high walls and Communist Party propaganda signs, leaving passersby with no indication that it is home to a religious site.

In late April, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, two ethnic Uyghur women sat behind a tiny mesh grate, underneath a surveillance camera, inside the compound of what had long been the city’s largest place of worship.

Reuters could not establish if the place was currently functioning as a mosque.

Within minutes of reporters arriving, four men in plain clothes showed up and took up positions around the site, locking gates to nearby residential buildings.

The men told the reporters it was illegal to take photos and to leave.

“There’s no mosque here … there has never been a mosque at this site,” said one of the men in response to a question from Reuters if there was a mosque inside. He declined to identify himself.

Minarets on the building’s four corners, visible in publicly available satellite images in 2019, have gone. A large blue metal box stood where the mosque’s central dome had once been. It was not clear if it was a place of worship at the time the satellite images were taken.

In recent months, China has stepped up a campaign on state media and with government-arranged tours to counter the criticism of researchers, rights groups and former Xinjiang residents who say thousands of mosques have been targeted in a crackdown on the region’s mostly Muslim Uyghur people.

Officials from Xinjiang and Beijing told reporters in Beijing that no religious sites had been forcibly destroyed or restricted and invited them to visit and report.

“Instead, we have taken a series of measures to protect them,” Elijan Anayat, a spokesman for the Xinjiang government, said of mosques late last year.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday some mosques had been demolished, while others had been upgraded and expanded as part of rural revitalisation but Muslims could practise their religion openly at home and in mosques.

Asked about restrictions authorities put on journalists visiting the area, Hua said reporters had to try harder to “win the trust of the Chinese people” and report objectively.

Reuters visited more than two dozen mosques across seven counties in southwest and central Xinjiang on a 12-day visit during Ramadan, which ended on Thursday.

There is a contrast between Beijing’s campaign to protect mosques and religious freedom and the reality on the ground. Most of the mosques that Reuters visited had been partially or completely demolished.

A Chinese national flag flies outside the former Xinqu Mosque that had its minarets and central dome removed in Changji outside Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, May 6, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Thomas Peter

‘Life is beautiful’

China has repeatedly said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from separatists and religious extremists who plot attacks and stir up tension between Uyghurs who call the region home and the ethnic Han, China‘s largest ethic group.

A mass crackdown that includes a campaign of restrictions on religious practice and what rights groups describe as the forced political indoctrination of more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims began in earnest in 2017.

China initially denied detaining people in detention camps, but has since said they are vocational training centres and that the people have “graduated” from them.

The government says there are more than 20,000 mosques in Xinjiang but no detailed data on their status is available.

Some functioning mosques have signs saying congregants must register while citizens from outside the area, foreigners and anyone under the age of 18 are banned from going in.

Functioning mosques feature surveillance cameras and include Chinese flags and propaganda displays declaring loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

Visiting reporters were almost always followed by plainclothes personnel and warned not to take photographs.

A Han woman, who said she had moved to the city of Hotan six years ago from central China, said Muslims who wanted to pray could do so at home.

“There are no Muslims like that here anymore,” the woman said, referring to those who used to pray at the mosque. She added: “Life in Xinjiang is beautiful.”

‘Ethnic unity’

Some state-sanctioned mosques are shown off to visiting journalists and diplomats, like the Jiaman Mosque in Hotan.

“Everything is paid for by the party,” said a Hotan official at the mosque on a visit arranged for Reuters by the city propaganda department.

The official, who went by the nickname “Ade” but declined to give his full name, said men were free to pray at the mosque five times a day, according to Islamic custom.

While reporters were there, several dozen men, most of them elderly, came to pray as dusk fell. Afterwards, they broke their fast with food provided by the local government.

The mosque, more than 170 years old, is one of four in the region earmarked as cultural relics, with funds for renovation from the central government, the Xinjiang government said.

As the mosque’s leader or imam removed his shoes, Ade demonstrated a machine given by the government that shrink-wraps shoes in plastic.

“Now you don’t even need to take your shoes off in the mosque, it’s very convenient,” he said.

A part of a minaret broken off from the former Xinqu Mosque lies near a Chinese national flag in a yard adjacent to the former house of worship in Changji outside Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, May 6, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Crumbling minarets

In Changji, about 40 km west of the regional capital, Urumqi, green and red minarets of the city’s Xinqu Mosque lay broken below a Chinese flag flying over the deserted building’s courtyard.

Reuters analysed satellite imagery of 10 mosques in Changji city and visited six of them.

A total of 31 minarets and 12 green or gold domes had been removed within a period of two months after April 2018, according to dated images.

At several mosques, Islamic architecture was replaced with Chinese-style roofing. These included Changji’s Tianchi road mosque, whose gold dome and minarets were removed in 2018, according to publicly available satellite images.

The Xinjiang government did not respond to a request for comment on the state of mosques in the region.

Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimated in 2020, after a survey of 900 Xinjiang locations, that 16,000 mosques had been partially or completely destroyed over the previous three years.

Signs outside the Xinqu Mosque, with the crumbling minarets, said a housing development would soon be built on the site.

“For ethic unity, build a beautiful Xinjiang,” a sign read.

(Reuters)

Uyghur Muslims Rights Abuse: US Sanctions Highest-Ranking Chinese Official Yet

China has denied mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims and says the camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

Washington: The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on the highest-ranking Chinese official yet targeted over alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority, a move likely to further ratchet up tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Washington blacklisted Xinjiang region’s Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China’s powerful Central Politburo, and three other officials. The highly anticipated action followed months of Washington’s hostility toward Beijing over China’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak and its tightening grip on Hong Kong.

Also read: Detained in J&K, 3 Uyghur Asylum Seekers Hope Against Hope for Relief

A senior administration official who briefed reporters after the announcements described Chen as the highest-ranking Chinese official ever sanctioned by the United States.

The blacklisting is “no joke,” he said. “Not only in terms of symbolic and reputational effect, but it does have real meaning on a person’s ability to move around the world and conduct business.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. But China has denied mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims and says the camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

A masked Uyghur boy takes part in a protest against China, at the courtyard of Fatih Mosque, a common meeting place for pro-Islamist demonstrators in Istanbul, Turkey on November 6, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Murad Sezer

The sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the US government to target human rights violators worldwide by freezing any US assets, banning US travel and prohibiting Americans from doing business with them.

Sanctions were also imposed on Zhu Hailun, a former deputy party secretary and current deputy secretary of the regional legislative body the Xinjiang’s People’s Congress; Wang Mingshan, the director and Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau; and former party secretary of the bureau Huo Liujun.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was also barring Chen, Zhu, Wang and their immediate families, as well as other unnamed Chinese Communist Party officials, from travelling to the United States.

The main exile group the World Uyghur Congress welcomed the move and called for the European Union and other countries to follow suit.

US Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who sponsored legislation signed by US President Donald Trump in June that calls for sanctions over the repression of Uyghurs, told Reuters the move was “long overdue” and that more steps were needed.

Also read: China’s Suppression of Uyghur Muslims Goes Unacknowledged

“For far too long, Chinese officials have not been held accountable for committing atrocities that likely constitute crimes against humanity,” Rubio said.

The Associated Press reported last month that China was trying to slash birth rates amongst Uyghurs with forced birth control. China denounced the report as fabricated.

Despite Trump’s hardline public remarks about Beijing, former national security adviser John Bolton alleged in his recent book that Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping should go ahead with building detention camps in Xinjiang and sought Xi’s help to win reelection in November.

Trump said in an interview last month he had held off on tougher sanctions on China over Uyghur human rights due to concerns such measures would have interfered in trade negotiations with Beijing.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had also raised objections to the Treasury sanctions, especially against a Politburo member, out of concerns they could further damage US-China relations, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world,” Mnuchin said in a statement.

Peter Harrell, a former US official and sanctions expert at the Center for a New American Security, said Thursday’s move may signal a continued shift by the Trump administration of “paying more attention to human rights abuses in China … after several years of relative neglect.”

Chen made his mark swiftly after taking the top post in Xinjiang in 2016 when mass “anti-terror” rallies were held in the region’s largest cities involving tens of thousands of paramilitary troops and police. He is widely considered the senior official responsible for the security crackdown in Xinjiang.

United Nations experts and activists estimate more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps in the Xinjiang region.

(Reuters)

Detained in J&K, 3 Uyghur Asylum Seekers Hope Against Hope for Relief

The three have been kept in detention under the Public Safety Act since 2015 after they completed a one-and-a-half year sentence for entering Indian territory without proper documentation.

Srinagar: Lodged in a district jail in Jammu for the last three years, Adil, Abdul Salam and Abdul Khaliq have yearned for asylum and freedom from incarceration for what seems like forever.

The three Uyghur Muslim brothers ran away from the town of Kargilik in Xinjiang, China to escape an “impoverished life mired with persecution”. Their destiny hangs on the outcome of a petition currently pending before the Jammu and Kashmir high court.

The trio have been kept in detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) since 2015 after they completed a one-and-a-half year sentence for entering Indian territory without proper documentation. Citing the persecution of Uyghur Muslims under the Chinese government, the three have said that they do not wish to go back to their native country.

Arrest and trial

Official records accessed by The Wire reveal that the brothers were apprehended by the army’s Five Ladakh Scouts regiment on June 12, 2013, near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) dividing India and China.

A day later, they were handed over to paramilitary force Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) which is primarily responsible for guarding the 3,488 km-long LAC with China which runs along the new Union territory of Ladakh and the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.

After remaining in the custody of the ITBP for more than two months at the Murgo forward post, the three brothers were handed over to the police at the Nobra Police Station on August 28, 2018, which subsequently registered an FIR 10/2013 under section 14 of The Foreigners Act, Section 3 of Passport Entry into India Act and Section 30 of the Arms Act.

They were charged with committing offences under the Arms Act for possession of knives at the time of their arrest.

Also read: China’s Suppression of Uyghur Muslims Goes Unacknowledged

During a hearing of the case, the court of chief judicial magistrate Nobra observed that the three were unable to understand Urdu or any other language and directed the state government to provide an interpreter for the Ughyur language.

On July 22, 2014, counsel for the trio, advocate Stanzin Dawa, submitted an application before the court that stated that after the detainees had spent time in the Leh district jail, they had learnt Urdu and Hindi to an extent that they were able to understand the nature of their crime and wanted to confess voluntarily.

Passing the order, the chief judicial magistrate Nobra sentenced them to imprisonment for one-and-a-half years after being convinced that the accused persons were able to understand Urdu and Hindi to the degree that they were able to understand the nature of the crime and the charges levelled against them.

Pleas for asylum

Nearly a year after completing their sentence, the three brothers dispatched separate applications to the Union home secretary seeking asylum or temporary refugee status in India.

Their pleas were forwarded by the superintendent of the district jail in Leh to the home ministry on February 28, 2016.

In their applications, the three sought asylum and submitted that they could face execution or life imprisonment if they were handed over to the Chinese authorities. They also pointed out that the Ughyur Muslim community in China was being subjected to severe atrocities.

At the same time, a writ petition against their repatriation was filed in the Jammu and Kashmir high court by Muhammad Abdullah, who is also an ethnic Ughyur. Abdullah, whose father had settled in Leh somewhere between 1930 and 1940 after migrating to India from Xinjiang, had been frequently called upon by the police to act as an Uyghur interpreter for the three brothers.

Also read: Members of Minority Communities Across the World Raise Concern Over CAB

On March 3, 2016, the high court directed the government that any steps for deportation shall not be taken until further orders from the court. “Till objections are filed and steps, if any, taken shall await till further orders of the court,” read an order passed by the single bench headed by Justice Muhammad Yaqoob.

Government response and detention of the trio

In its response, the Jammu and Kashmir government in 2016 told the court that the Union home ministry had decided to deport or repatriate the three Chinese nationals to their native country.

“This has reference to the Superintendent, District Jail, Leh Ladakh’s letter NO. ESSST/DJL/2016/ 1780, dated 29-2-2016 on the subject cited above. The matter has been considered by this ministry and it has been decided to deport/ repatriate three Chinese nationals Adil/ Abdul Khaliq and Abdul Salam sons of Thursum R/0 Xinjiang, China (Uighur) presently lodged in district Jail Leh to their native country,” read the MHA under secretary’s letter to the principal secretary of Jammu and Kashmir government’s home department.

“You are therefore requested to complete the deportation process of the above China (Uighur) nationals in consultation with Ministry of External Affairs (South East Asia division) for issuance of travel documents for deportation to their native country at the earliest provided that there is no pending court case against them and they are not required in any other case,” the letter further stated.

The government informed the court that it had written to the MEA, asking it to consult the Chinese embassy in connection with the issuance of travel documents for the three detainees.

The Jammu and Kashmir government also submitted that plea of the petitioners for granting of asylum or temporary refuge did not fall within its jurisdiction.

Advocate Sachin Gupta, who is a lawyer for the three detainees, told The Wire that the government of India is yet to file its response in the matter.

Also read: In Cancelling Indian Visa for Uighur Activist, Modi Government ‘Scores Own Goal on China’

A senior official from the Jammu and Kashmir prisons department, on the condition of anonymity, said that the three detainees have been lodged at the district jail at Amphalla, Jammu since December 2017 after being shifted from the district jail in Leh.

Since the three completed their sentence in 2015, they have been detained under the controversial Public Safety Act, which has been used to keep foreigners under custody until their repatriation to their native countries.

The Uyghurs are a minority ethnic group living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. The Muslim community regards itself as being culturally and ethnically similar to those in Central Asian nations. Many Uyghurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan, because the region had come under Chinese control following two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 1940s.

A few Uyghur families settled in the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir before 1947. In 1949, hundreds of Uyghurs migrated to Kashmir following the communist takeover of China. However, it is understood that many had to resettle in other countries, including Turkey, in 1954 due to what is largely conceived as diplomatic pressure from Beijing on New Delhi.

Human Rights Watch Blasts China for Rights Violations at Home and Abroad

Human Rights Watch head Kenneth Roth also heavily criticised the United Nations Secretary General for not holding China accountable for its human rights abuses.

United Nations: China is currently under heavy scrutiny for its massive human rights violations across different sections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) head Kenneth Roth said on Wednesday. 

At the launch of World Report 2020, which focuses largely on China’s record of violating human rights for both its citizens domestically as well as abroad, Roth blasted the country’s government for undermining global interests and interventions with regards to human rights issues.

Roth, who was denied access to Hong Kong over the weekend, said at the launch that China is “using diplomatic clout to silence global institutions”. He also heavily criticised the United Nations Secretary General for not holding China accountable for its human rights abuses.

“At the UN headquarters, a major Chinese government priority has been avoiding discussion of its conduct in Xinjiang,” he said. “UN Secretary General António Guterres has been unwilling to publicly demand an end to China’s mass detention of its Muslims.”

Also read: China Accuses UN Human Rights Chief of Inflaming Hong Kong Unrest

On Wednesday, Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesperson told reporters during a briefing that the Secretary General had previously spoken out on this issue on a number of occasions and raised a number of issues with his Chinese counterparts. He reiterated the Secretary General’s position which is based on principles surrounding “full respect for the unity and territorial integrity of China,” protection of human rights in the “fight against terrorism” and the importance of “each community to “feel that its identity is fully respected.”

He was unable to respond to specific allegations by Roth that China continues to “avoid discussion of its conduct in Xinjiang” at the UN.  In September HRW released a report of the “Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims”.

Suu Kyi’s ‘appalling’ efforts

Meanwhile, Roth also echoed thoughts from experts who have previously said that one of the reasons the Security Council had not been able to take steps against Myanmar is because of pressure from China.

In November, on the heels of a lawsuit being filed against Myanmar by the Gambia, Akila Radhakrishnan of the Global Justice Center expressed similar concerns to IPS.

“Security council has consistently failed to act because of China — there’s no possibility of any strong action,” Radhakrishnan had said, reiterating why it’s important for states to directly take action against Myanmar.

In that regard, especially with Roth’s concerns about China “intimidation of other governments” with threats, one issue of concern would be China’s relations with the Gambia, which has grown in the past few years.

Also read: Why the Youth Have Been Protesting in Hong Kong for Years

When asked, Roth told IPS he wasn’t aware if the Gambia was going to suffer any threats from China given its actions against Myanmar, but he said Aung San Suu Kyi leading the defence in the case is “appalling.”

“One element of this that is not generally appreciated is the initial hearing that took place a few weeks ago was actually not about the merits of the genocide case, it was about the provisional measures,” he said.

Provisional measures in the case of international law ensures that the main concern at the centre of the suite is not destroyed while the case is pending, which in this case would mean Myanmar imposes measures to refrain from any acts of genocide against the Rohingya community, and would ensure protecting the Rohingya community still in Myanmar.

“It was about protecting the roughly 450,000 Rohingyas who are still in Rakhine state, still within Myanmar,” Roth said. “So these are the people who are living terrified, displaced…unable to move. They are extremely at risk of the same violence that sent 730,000 compatriots fleeing to Bangladesh a couple years ago.”

He said Suu Kyi’s move implies that she isn’t just defending the past atrocities of Myanmar against Rohingya people.

“It’s not just defending past action that she was there for,” he said, “she was defending the future.”

(IPS) 

Hong Kong: Thousands Mobilise for Anti-Triad Rally

Defying a police ban, protesters rallied through a New Territories town where a mob brutally attacked people last week. Riot police fired dozens of rounds of tear gas to disperse angry demonstrators.

Hong Kong Police on Saturday fired tear gas and rubber bullets to scatter large crowds of protesters demanding action against suspected triad gangs who beat up pro-democracy demonstrators last weekend.

Thousands of people marched through a town in the New Territories close to the border with mainland China, defying a police ban amid concerns about reprisal attacks.

Some protesters chanted anti-police slogans such as “black police” and “know the law, break the law.”

Clashes erupted later when riot police tried to disperse protesters at several flash points in the northwestern town of Yuen Long.

Police fired dozens of rounds of tear gas and pepper spray and some demonstrators retaliated by throwing projectiles at officers.

In other locations, protesters built barricades from sidewalk railings to prevent police from moving forward.

Police later charged into a train station where hundreds of protesters were taking refuge from the tear gas. Some officers struck demonstrators with their batons while others urged their colleagues to stand down. Blood could be seen splattered on the floor of the station.

Authorities said that they arrested 11 men for offences ranging from assault, unlawful assembly and possession of an offensive weapon. Some 24 people were taken to hospitals on Saturday for injuries, according to the Hospital Authority.

Suspected triad attack

Public anger has been raging since last Sunday when a gang of men in white t-shirts, armed with poles and batons, set upon anti-government protesters and bystanders in Yuen Long station. Forty five people needed hospital treatment.

Demonstrators say that paid gangs from the local area were responsible for the attacks and accuse the police of not protecting them. Police say they have already made a dozen arrests.

One protester, Ms. Chin, told DW that “police took about 40 minutes to arrive at the station” after the violence broke out last Sunday, even though the police station is just a short drive away.

A second protester, Mr Wong, said the police’s slow reaction made him “suspect some sort of collusion with the triad gangs, or at least they turned a blind eye.”

The New Territories is a more rural area of Hong Kong where many of the surrounding villages are known for links to the triads and their staunch support for the pro-Beijing establishment.

In a rare move, police banned Saturday’s rally due to fears of repeat or reprisal attacks. Photo: Reuters

Saturday’s rally marked the eighth consecutive week of protests in the former British colony. The demonstrations first erupted last month in opposition to plans by the local government to allow the extradition of suspected criminals to China.

The mainland’s justice system is widely criticised as lacking independence and respect for human rights.

Those marches saw more than a million people take to the streets, prompting the territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, to put the proposed bill on hold.

More demands

Since then, the movement has grown to include demands for direct elections, the dissolution of the current legislature, an investigation into police brutality and less Chinese interference in Hong Kong affairs.

The movement’s leaders have however failed to persuade Beijing or Hong Kong’s leaders to change course amid clashes with police and the storming of Hong Kong’s parliament in early July by some protesters.

The United Kingdom handed Hong Kong to China in 1997 as part of an agreement that included Beijing’s pledge to respect the territory’s semi-autonomous status until 2047.

This article was originally published on Deutsche Welle.

Hong Kong Protests, China’s Business Community Unnerves

Escalating unrest over a controversial extradition Bill causes worries about the impact on the city’s status as a financial hub.

Hong Kong: Chaotic scenes of protesters rampaging through Hong Kong‘s legislature, trashing furniture and daubing graffiti over walls have sent jitters through the business community, which worries about the impact on the city’s status as a financial hub.

Plumes of smoke billowed among gleaming sky-scrapers early on Tuesday as police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the heart of the Chinese-ruled city, home to the offices of some of the world’s biggest companies, including global bank HSBC.

Escalating unrest over a controversial extradition Bill, which would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial, grabbed global headlines and clouded the former British colony’s outlook as a finance hub, one of the city’s main pillars of growth.

“I think there will be damage to the reputation of Hong Kong,” said Yumi Yung, 35, who works in fintech. “Some companies may want to leave Hong Kong, or at least not have their headquarters here.”

Around 1,500 multinational companies make Hong Kong their Asian home because of its stability and rule of law. Some of the biggest and most violent protests in decades could change that perception.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including freedom to protest and an independent judiciary. Monday was the 22nd anniversary.

Also read: China Condemns Hong Kong Protests as ‘Undisguised Challenge’ to Its Rule

Beijing denies interfering but, for many Hong Kong residents, the extradition Bill is the latest step in a relentless march towards mainland control. Many fear it would put them at the mercy of courts controlled by the Communist Party where human rights are not guaranteed.

“If this Bill is not completely scrapped, I will have no choice but to leave my home, Hong Kong,” said Steve, a British lawyer who has worked in Hong Kong for 30 years.

Daniel Yim, a 27-year-old investment banker, said both sides needed to sit down and work things out.

“I think the most effective way to address this will be that the government will … actually tackle this and speak to the people, and I guess, you know, both sides sit together and come up with … the appropriate solution.”

A worker cleans up outside the Legislative Council, a day after protesters broke into the building in Hong Kong, China July 2, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Losing freedom

Others raised concerns about the future of human rights and the judiciary. Many did not want to use their full names.

“To me, the biggest worry is how Hong Kong is losing its independence bit by bit and is getting dangerously close to a country that doesn’t value human rights and that doesn’t have an independent judicial system,” said Edward, an Australian citizen who has worked in the financial sector for 10 years.

The extradition Bill, now suspended but not scrapped, has also spooked some tycoons into moving their personal wealth offshore, according to financial advisers familiar with the details.

An Australian businesswoman who has worked in Hong Kong for 16 years lamented what she saw as Beijing’s tightening grip.

“China is just taking away more and more freedom from Hong Kong,” she said.

“I feel sorry for Hong Kong people, especially Hong Kong people … (here) for more freedom, a better economy, a better life, and now it’s going backwards,” the woman said.

Such concerns came as China’s top newspaper warned on Wednesday that outbreaks of lawlessness could damage Hong Kong‘s reputation and seriously hurt its economy.

Calm has returned for now, but the events of recent weeks have set many people thinking.

“If it had escalated, I would consider moving elsewhere,” a 44-year-old hedge fund manager said of the ransacking of the legislature. “I employ four to five people in Hong Kong so yes, I would consider moving.”

(Reuters)

China’s Suppression of Uyghur Muslims Goes Unacknowledged

The economic interests of various countries prevent them from raising the issue of persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang with China which uses “anti-terrorism” to justify its authoritarian practices.

In February, Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, declared on Chinese state television, “China has the right to carry out antiterrorism and de-extremisation work for its national security.”  He was following the clumsy script that China has used repeatedly to cover up its violations of the human rights of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.

The alibi is common to authoritarian states who create “states of exception” and “emergency resolutions” to bypass the rule of law, substituting its self-appointed notion of “right” to violate human rights doctrine conventions. In the case of the Uyghur, an entire people has been categorised as “terrorist,” and China has developed a massive and programmatic response to such “extremism” — concentration camps that extract labour at the same time as they suppress any thoughts, beliefs, cultural values, language, even food, that evinces Muslim identity.

Besides bin Salman, other leaders regarded as vigorous advocates for Muslims have also signed on to what might be called the “Uyghur Exception.” In 2017, Pakistan’s current prime minister, Imran Khan, while still in the political opposition party, condemned the “hypocrisy” of the international community in failing to protect the rights of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar; Khan also has criticised human rights violations against Muslim Kashmiris.

But when asked about the Uyghur, Khan said, “Frankly, I don’t know much about that,” explaining that the issue was “not so much in the papers.”Many speculate that, like bin Salman, Khan has chosen not to defend Uyghur Muslims because of the lucrative trade deals Middle East countries are inking with China.

In the case of Pakistan, this has taken the form of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) along the Arabian sea, a project priced at $60 billion. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Barkha Dutt notes that “China has long used its economic investments for strategic expansionism, especially in countries that share a border (maritime or terrestrial) with India. Whether it’s Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka or the Maldives, China has dangled investments in exchange for influence.”

Economics also plays a significant role in the persecution and repression of the Uyghur as well. Approximately ten million Uyghur are concentrated in Xinjiang province, also known as the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR).  It spans some 640,000 square miles, representing about one-sixth of the total land area under the control of the People’s Republic of China.

Also read: In Hong Kong, Memories of Tiananmen Square Are Both Alive and Relevant

China has long been intent on exploiting Xinjiang’s vast natural resources — increasing oil extraction and refining, along with coal and natural gas production, among other resources.  The province has an estimated twenty-one billion tons of oil reserves; its coal resources represent 40% of China’s total. Thus the repression of the Uyghur takes place simultaneously with the plundering of Xinjiang’s natural resources.

But Xinjiang is essential for another reason: it is the hub of the most ambitious infrastructure project in modern history. The Belt and Road initiative runs along the old Silk Road and will span three continents and cover almost 60 % of the world’s population.  It is the vehicle with which China hopes to become the world’s dominant superpower.  Thus it is all the more essential to control this critical geopolitical area with an iron hand.

The suppression of the Uyghur also has both a direct and indirect benefit.  It represses an entire population, and that repression serves as a threat to any other group that would challenge Chinese hegemony.  The construction and maintenance of the concentration camps are meant to “re-educate” the rest of China, and indeed the world, at the same time it tortures the Uyghur and extracts all elements of their independence.

The roots of Uyghur repression 

Some have said that the repression and imprisonment of Uyghurs and the physical and psychological torture imposed upon them, resemble the Chinese government’s crackdown on the members of the Falungong spiritual sect in the late 1990s. Initially, the government tolerated the emergence of this group. Yet as their numbers rose exponentially (to nearly seventy million), China saw them as a real threat to state ideology.

China has classified Falungong members in the same category as both Tibetan and

Paramilitary policemen stand in formation as they take part in an anti-terrorism oath-taking rally, in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, February 27, 2017. Credit: Stringer/Reuters

“separatists” — threats to the Communist Party. In all three cases, repression has taken the form of imprisonment, surveillance, and “re-education.”Yet of all these groups, the Uyghurs stand out as targets of both Islamophobia and racism.

 

Unlike another large group of Muslims in China, the Hui people, Uyghurs are not ethnically or culturally Chinese, but rather Turkish — this makes them specifically open to persecution on the basis not only of religion but also of race. Their culture and language (an Asian Turkic language similar to Uzbek) have been degraded, and they occupy the lowest rungs of the social and economic hierarchies.

Also read: Review: Of Dissent, Independence Movements and the Fight for Identity by Minority Societies in China

The Uyghur have chafed under these conditions for decades and began carrying out militant actions in the late 1990s. Such groups as the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (later the Turkestan Islamic Party) drew international attention both because of their aspirations to join Al Qaeda and attacks perpetrated around the Beijing Olympics. But the most prevalent instances of violence have been sporadic, autonomous, and of short duration.

It is thus a combination of economics, culture, religion, resources, and strategic location that drive the current repression of the Uyghur; the economic interests of Middle East countries prevent them from raising this issue with China.

In August 2018, Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that two million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.  She said:

“We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of ‘no rights zone.’”

The deprivation of rights is, of course, seen as necessary for China to succeed in its ambition to forcibly strip the Uyghur of their Muslim identity and subjugate them to Han dominance. Any presence of Islam is seen as the presence of terrorism and separatism.

The Chinese government has said that these are “vocational training centres” meant to eliminate “the soil for the survival of terrorism,” according to Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A speech delivered by Chinese Communist Youth League Xinjiang Branch, March 2017 stated:

“The training has only one purpose: to learn laws and regulations … to eradicate from the mind thoughts about religious extremism and violent terrorism and to cure ideological diseases. If the education is not going well, we will continue to provide free education, until the students achieve satisfactory results and graduate smoothly.”

Of course, a significant part of “re-education” involves the censoring and imprisonment of Uyghur intellectuals. Their alleged crimes are the standard ones — they are accused of preaching “separatism” and called “two-faced.” “Two-faced” is a term applied by the government to Uyghur cadres who pay lip service to Communist Party rule in the XUAR but secretly push against state policies repressing members of their ethnic group.

Also read: Tibetan Leader Lobsang Sangey Not Invited to Modi’s Swearing-In This Time

Dolkun Isa, president of the exiled World Uighur Congress, has claimed that two million people are detained in “concentration camps” in Xinjiang. The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) estimates that some 435 intellectuals (mostly students, but also teachers and researchers) have been imprisoned or disappeared. According to the Xinjiang Victims Database, 49 individuals have died in custody or shortly after their release, among them religious scholars Muhammad Salih Hajim and Abdulehed Mehsum; scholars Abdusattar Qarahajim and Erkinjan Abdukerim; and students Abdusalam Mamat, Yasinjan, and Mutellip Nurmehmet.

In response, an international petition has been started by a group called Concerned Scholars on China’s Mass Detention of Turkic Minorities. This group includes signatories such as Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Saskia Sassen, Hatem Bazian, Laleh Khalili, and hundreds more (including me). The letter does as good a job as any document laying out the broader implications of what China is doing in Xinjiang:

China has defended its mass incarceration of Turkic Muslims on the basis of counter-terrorism.  However, it is also apparent that China is both seeking to embed its Xinjiang-focused policies in counter-terrorism cooperation with international partners and to export the methods and technologies that have underpinned its “surveillance state” in Xinjiang. If what is happening today in the XUAR is not addressed by the international community, there is a likelihood that we could see its replication in other authoritarian states who have used the label of “terrorist” to describe those who peacefully resist state hegemony.

David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor at Stanford University.

This article was originally published on Jacobin.

Chinese Rights Lawyer Sentenced to Two Years in Jail for Inciting Subversion

The court said Jiang, 46, used social media to “attack or defame” Chinese government departments and incited others to gather and demonstrate in public.

FILE PHOTO - Police react in front of disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong's portrait, during a demonstration, outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 23, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

FILE PHOTO – Police react in front of disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong’s portrait, during a demonstration, outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 23, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

Beijing: A prominent Chinese rights lawyer was sentenced to two years jail on Tuesday after being found guilty of inciting subversion of state power, the latest in a series of similar verdicts amid a sweeping crackdown on activism.

In a verdict posted on its official Weibo microblog on Tuesday morning, the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court said the lawyer, Jiang Tianyong, developed notions of overthrowing China’s political system after being influenced by training workshops held by “anti-China foreign forces” overseas.

The court said Jiang, 46, used social media to “attack or defame” Chinese government departments and incited others to gather and demonstrate in public.

Jiang’s wife, Jin Bianling, who lives in the United States, told Reuters on Tuesday that the verdict was “unacceptable” and that she believed her husband was being made an example to “deter or repress” other rights lawyers.

“I do not acknowledge or accept this verdict,” she said in a telephone interview. “Jiang Tianyong is innocent”.

Jiang, who was disbarred in 2009 after taking on sensitive cases such as defending practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, had been outspoken in criticising an ongoing government crackdown on dissent that has seen hundreds of rights lawyers and activists sentenced or detained since mid-2015.

The verdict was handed down exactly one year after Jiang first disappeared last November while visiting the family of another detained rights lawyer. He was held incommunicado for six months before being formally charged.

The facts in the court’s ruling were broadly similar to those in a confession made by Jiang during his trial in August. Video footage of Jiang reading parts of a written statement were released by the court via social media at the time.

But rights groups said the trial was a show trial designed to discredit him and that Jiang was caught up in a sweeping campaign directed against lawyers and activists.

Jin said Jiang’s family was unable to appoint their own lawyers and that she had not been able to contact Jiang since his detention.

“We don’t know what his conditions are inside, or what kind of torture of mistreatment he has suffered,” she said.

The Chinese authorities have video-streamed or live-blogged increasing numbers of court hearings in recent years as part of a push towards judicial transparency.

But rights activists say that in sensitive cases the hearings are only selectively made available when the defendant has already agreed to go along with a pre-prepared outcome.

(Reuters)