International attention on the question of Xinjiang, the autonomous province in the northwestern corner of China, and the oppression of its native Uyghur population by the Chinese state still lags behind the well-publicized case of Tibet. Yet in the mind of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xinjiang, which many Uyghurs call East Turkistan, now outweighs Tibet as a…
Nurbiye Nurtay, an ethnic Uyghur Muslim from northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has been living in Malaysia practicing traditional Uyghur medicine for the last three years. She lost contact with her family in Ghulja (Yining) county, in the XUAR’s Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, nearly a year ago, and only recently discovered…
Totalitarian determination and modern technology have produced a massive abuse of human rights “THE prophet Sulayman approached his son and said to him, ‘I have received a message from God. I want you to circle the Earth and see if there are more people who are alive in spirit or more people who are dead…
Hundreds of thousands, and potentially more than one million, people have been caught up in China’s “re-education camps” over the last year. The camps, which operate outside the courts, are designed to indoctrinate ethnic minority Uighurs and force them to reject their religious beliefs. Bids for constructing or renovating these centers, as well as staff…
Two Uyghur civil servants in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been jailed for failing to send members of their ethnic group to “political re-education camps,” according to sources, as part of a crackdown by authorities on so-called “two-faced” officials. Omerjan Hesen, 34, director of archives for the Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefectural…
BEIJING (Reuters) – It can crack your smartphone password in seconds, rip personal data from call and messaging apps, and peruse your contact book. The Chinese-made XDH-CF-5600 scanner – or “mobile phone sleuth”, as sales staff described it when touting its claimed features – was one of hundreds of surveillance gadgets on display at a…
A video clip of a gloomy bride, believed to be a young Uyghur woman, appearing to begrudge marrying her groom, a member of China’s predominant Han race, has been circulating online, with observers and Uyghur human-rights advocacy groups calling it more proof of Beijing’s callous bid to “attenuate” the Uyghur identity in Xinjiang. The video…
On a rainy April morning in Washington, about 150 protestors gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy, waving light-blue flags and shouting slogans on behalf of an ethnic group few Americans have ever heard of. The Uyghurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) — an ancient people spread across much of East and Central Asia — mainly practice Islam,…
A young Uyghur woman has gone missing after returning to her home in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) from studying abroad in Malaysia, and is believed to be detained in a “political re-education camp,” according to her Germany-based sister. Gulgine Tashmemet flew home to Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) city in the XUAR’s Ili…
A first-hand account written by a former detainee reveals the horror that goes on in the name of ‘legal education’ inside the secretive walls of ‘re-education centres’ established by Chinese authorities in Tibet. Video Player Written by a monk whose identity is kept anonymous for security reasons, the account validates anecdotal evidence collected by the…
