Tibet isn’t the only Chinese province terrified of having its culture rubbed out by Beijing. Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority in western China, are reportedly being sent to “re-education camps” and serving lengthy jail sentences on trumped-up charges of religious extremism. The pain can be deeper for overseas workers who hear stories about their relatives…
Football player Erfan Hezim took a selfie with Lionel Messi weeks before he was detained in a re-education center. Image via FifPro. With World Cup 2018 underway, all eyes are focused on the game. But many people are unaware of what — or who — is missing on the field. The Fédération Internationale des Associations…
In recent months news that China is rounding up Muslims (mostly Uighurs) en masse in its northwestern Xinjiang region to political re-education camps has shocked many, although the story is still massively under-reported. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been disappeared in a campaign with absolutely no due process. Victims can…
Everything is, as they say, a matter of perspective. And of relation, of one to another, to others. Hong Kong is a small place. As a city in its own right, its 7.3 million people make Hong Kong the 46th biggest city in the world by population, and the 104th biggest country in the world,…
(Hotan, Xinjiang—June 24, 2018) 40 Uyghur people in China’s northwestern Xinjiang were sent to “reformation camps” for refusing to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, which took place on June 18. According to World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit, local authorities forced Uyghur people join with the Han people, China’s ethnic majority, in celebrating the Dragon…
Almas Nizamidin, an Australian citizen, urges the Australian government to help save his detained wife and mother in West China. Last year, when Almas Nizamidin returned to Urumqi — the capital city of China’s far-west region of Xinjiang — he was on a mission to find his wife who had been taken from her home…
Xinjiang has changed over the decades, emphasising more on a “nationalistic and secular” culture rather than ethnic cultures. At the local library and cultural centre in Yangi County, women practise for a national function dressed in military uniform. Xinjiang province has the most to offer China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. But with ethnic…
The Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which detains parents and led to the separation of 2,000 children, has been controversial and lead to some changes. But in China, police have been interning hundreds of thousands of adults for offenses like growing a beard or legally travelling overseas, or sometimes no offence at all. There are…
PEN International is seriously concerned for the well-being of Uyghur pop musician and lyric writer, Ablajan Awut Ayup (popularly known as Ablajan), who was taken into custody by state security agents in Urmqi, XUAR on 15 February 2018. No reason has been given for his detention and his family have not been informed of the…
“The psychological pressure is enormous, when you have to criticize yourself, denounce your thinking — your own ethnic group,” Omar Bekali, a resident of China’s Xinjiang province told a reporter from the Associated Press, breaking down in tears as he described the conditions he lived in. “I still think about it every night, until the…
