Despite the official stance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which nominally recognizes the Uyghur people as equal citizens, Uyghur Muslims have always had a troubled relationship with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central government authorities. The CCP currently considers Uyghurs part of the global radical Islamist threat. Facing a Beijing-supported influx of Chinese migrants,…
DetailsA professor who has become the most visible symbol of peaceful resistance to Chinese policies by ethnic Uyghurs was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday after being found guilty of separatism by court officials here in the western region of East Turkistan (Xinjiang), which Uyghurs consider their homeland. The punishment handed down to Ilham…
DetailsIn my series of interviews with Chinese intellectuals, there is an empty chair for Ilham Tohti, the economist and Uyghur activist. It’s not that I hadn’t heard of him or hadn’t been in China long enough to have met him before he was arrested earlier this year. I had, but foolishly had put off pursuing…
DetailsThe Uyghur economics professor, and founder of Uyghurbiz website, is on trial today in Urumqi on separatism charges. The following excerpts were compiled by Ilham’s close friend and Tibetan writerTsering Woeser in February this year shortly after his arrest. – The editor Currently in East Turkistan (Xinjiang), a developing tendency is that the authorities are over-extending anti-terrorism measures to conceal other problems in…
DetailsSky’s Mark Stone reveals some of the difficulties facing journalists attempting to report from China’s East Turkistan (Xinjiang) province, including fake identities and government surveillance. Sky News has obtained rare access to China’s East Turkistan (Xinjiang) Province to investigate reports Muslims are being targeted and oppressed by the government. Since December, a series of bloody…
DetailsThere is little reason to wake up early in Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road city of 350,000 in the southwestern corner of China’s vast East Turkistan (Xinjiang) region. The local Uyghur people, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority from the northwestern region, adhere to a time zone two hours behind China Standard Time, the officially designated time…
DetailsFollowing deadly attacks in Beijing, Kunming and Urumqi over the last year, the East Turkistan (Xinjiang) government has intensified its efforts to regulate Uyghur religious activities. The provincial government has once again reinforced its ban on Ramadan fasting for Uyghur civil servants and students in 2014, as it has frequently done since at least 2001.…
DetailsExactly a month ago, disturbing reports emerged from the county of Yarkand in the far southwest of China’s East Turkistan (Xinjiang) Province. According to several different sources, including the Chinese government, a riot between local Uyghur Muslims and the Chinese military had left many people dead. The initial reports from the Chinese state media claimed…
DetailsThere’s a long history of tensions between Chinese authorities in Beijing and the Uyghur people of East Turkistan (Xinjiang), a province in the remote far west of China. In recent weeks, a local imam who supported the Chinese government was stabbed to death outside a mosque in the city of Kashgar along the ancient Silk…
DetailsChina is well on the way to one of its biggest crackdowns in the restive and remote northwestern region of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) since ethnic riots racked the capital of Urumqi in 2009. Numbers released in state-media reports and in court press releases from the region show that since May more than 800 people, most…
DetailsIt’s not really “China’s Chechnya” yet, but the insurgency in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is growing fast. Incidents of anti-Chinese violence are getting bigger and much more frequent. Since March, 176 people have been killed in six separate attacks on Chinese police and government officials, local collaborators and ordinary Chinese residents of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) Uighur…
DetailsA lawyer representing Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, detained on charges of separatism, says the evidence he has been allowed to review by the prosecution so far is incomplete, while Chinese authorities in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) have yet to clarify whether he will be tried in secret. Tohti’s lawyer Li Fangping…
DetailsThe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is failing to deliver on its promises to quell violence in Xinjiang (East Turkistan). On July 28, bloody clashes between Uyghur protestors and para-military personnel in Yäkän (Ch. Shache) left at least 96 dead; leaders of Uyghur exile communities put the death toll at 2,000. Three days later, Jümä Tahir, the government-appointed…
DetailsThe city of Karamay in China’s turbulent Xinjiang (East Turkistan) region is currently hosting the 13th Xinjiang (East Turkistan) Sports Games. To keep the competition safe from terrorism, the city government announced an unusual safety measure: A ban on “abnormal” Muslim-associated clothing and hairstyles on public transport. Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is home to the Uighur people, a…
DetailsBeijing bans some Muslims from observing Ramadan, or boarding public transport while veiled, but it allows millions of others to practice their religion without hindrance The road to Linxia, in China’s vast, sere northwest, is known locally as the Quran Belt, with a profusion of newly built mosques and Sufi shrines lining the motorway. Some…
DetailsA Uyghur farmer compelled to join an anti-terror campaign waged by Chinese authorities in the troubled Xinjiang (East Turkistan) region has been hacked to death by two murder suspects, local officials said, raising concerns among the ethnic minority group about the risk of joining such government operations. Tursun Emet was killed when he stopped the…
DetailsChinese authorities in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) have detained an ethnic minority Uyghur man for spreading “rumors” after he alleged in an online post that Chinese security forces killed thousands of people in the troubled region’s Yarkand county earlier this month. The 22-year-old man uploaded the article onto an overseas website, the official Tianshan news website…
DetailsEnver Tohti was a surgeon in a hospital in Xinjiang (East Turkistan), in the northwestern part of China, when, in June 1995, he was instructed by his superior to prepare for an adventure — surgery in the field. In the morning, when the doctor and his team arrived at their destination, he realized they were…
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