What is happening in China?
Who are the Uyghurs?
Uyghurs are ethnically and culturally Turkic people living in the areas of Central Asia commonly known as East Turkistan. The Uyghurs have a rich cultural history going back almost 4,000 years.
Before embracing Islam in tenth century, Uyghurs believed in Buddhism, Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity. Today, Uyghurs practice a moderate form of Sufi Islam and lead predominantly secular lives.
With only a few extremely rare exceptions, Uyghurs continue to be the only population in China consistently subjected to executions for political and religious offenses.
What is happening to them?
Uyghurs living in East Turkistan (the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China) are constantly getting harassed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has extended its outright assault on basic human rights and fundamental freedoms guaranteed under international and Chinese law by effectively criminalizing even the most basic aspects of Uyghur life. Forcing them to go against their own religion and follow what the CCP wants.
On top of these severe systematic and comprehensive human rights violations, the Chinese authorities are committing crimes against humanity since late 2016, when the newly appointed CCP Secretary for the Uyghur Region, Chen Quanguo, who introduced not only a system of total surveillance in both the public and the private sphere but also established different kinds of political indoctrination camps all over East Turkistan, numbering in the thousands. Numerous mysterious deaths and widespread reports of torture accompanied the inception of these so-called “vocational training facilities”.
Uyghurs have suffered from state sponsored discrimination in terms of restrictions on religious freedom, language rights, cultural rights and freedom of movement for years.
Rather than scrutinizing the roots of resentment between ethnic groups, the government has largely chosen to lay the blame on Islam for violence committed by a tiny fraction of the Islamic population. Collective punishment is the end result, as the government continues to push the idea that Uyghur cultural expression and religious practice naturally leads to instability.
Over 5 million Uyghurs are held captive in these “concentration camps”. These people are getting stripped of their basic rights are being forced into leaving Islam women and kids are getting sent to Chinese families to convert, men are being forced into drink alcohol and eating pork (against their religion). They are getting killed at a very rapid rate and the media is not covering this issue enough. The death toll has already crossed that of the holocaust. They are being brutally beaten up for even speaking their native language.
How can we help?
Donate to different sites, sign petitions raise awareness as much as you can on social media. That’s the best way we can help those suffering. Humanity always comes before religion and we need to do something now.
Till Next Time,
The Alpha Theory
~Ananya Agarwal
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