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 being carted off to prison thousands of kilometers away simply for practicing their religion – viewed as a threat to the officially atheist state.
Almas Nizamidin, 27, a construction worker and naturalized Australian citizen, returned to Urumqi, the capital of his native Xinjiang (East Turkistan), last year to find his wife imprisoned and Chinese tanks lining the streets.
“It looked like an occupation,” he told abc.net.au, adding that his pregnant wife had been ordered to serve seven years in jail after officials learned she had previously undertaken religious studies in the Middle East.
Most Uighurs are Muslims who practice Islam. Reports claim that over the last 12 months between 200,000 and 1 million have been interned at mass detention facilities as Beijing considers them potential enemies of the state.
The ABC interviewed some of 600 Uighur families believed to be residing in Australia and found that most were too scared to speak on record.
But many feel religious persecution in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is being stepped up as Han Chinese flood the state and Uighurs are made to chant Communist slogans and denounce their religion at the detention camps, the media reported.
Davi Brophy, a lecturer in Chinese history at the University of Sydney, conceded that some Uighurs have fled abroad to study with jihadists.
However, Beijing has a “choke hold on Xinjiang (East Turkistan)’s entry and exit points, and this strategy is no threat to Beijing’s rule – certainly not one that could justify today’s crackdown,” the media quoted him as saying.
