Author: Chin@Strategy

“Chinese Rahat Abdullah” has become a regular on Pakistani social media channels, YouTube and Facebook, wearing Atlas silk dresses, Pakistani clothing, or traditional Chinese outfits. Regarded as a Chinese internet star, she also sings in Urdu on local radio and cooks Uyghur dishes on Pakistani TV programs – though she refers to the dishes as Chinese food.  Her sudden rise in popularity has raised questions among Uyghurs living in Pakistan about Beijing’s efforts to use local Uyghurs as pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda tools to downplay the Chinese government’s horrific treatment…

A Chinese government-sponsored visit to Xinjiang by 25 Beijing-based ambassadors and other diplomats from developing countries has come under fire by human rights activists for pushing an official narrative that the mostly Muslim Uyghurs in the far-western region are thriving, despite the reality of severe repression. The delegation, which included diplomats from Dominica, Myanmar, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Nicaragua and Mexico, visited the western autonomous region from July 31 to Aug. 3. Xinhua news agency and CGTN, China’s state-run international TV broadcaster, covered the diplomats as they visited Xinjiang’s capital…

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For young Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang region, Istanbul’s East Turkistan Youth Center has been a godsend during a difficult time.   One 25-year-old who arrived in Turkey in 2016 turned to the center for counseling after struggling with a drug habit. “When I heard about this center and the support they were providing to Uyghur youth for free, I couldn’t believe my ears,” he said. “Before joining the center, I was involved in negative activities and used drugs like heroin.” Abdusami Hoten, 30, co-founded the center in 2021 in Istanbul’s Safakoy…

An elderly Uyghur serving a nearly 14-year prison sentence in Xinjiang following his arrest in 2017 for studying religion as a child and for committing other religious “offenses” died of hypertension while in jail, a local police officer said. Abdurusul Memet, 71, from a village in Kashgar county was sentenced for learning the Quran from his father when he was 12 years old, praying and having a beard, he said.  Memet’s situation came to light after the Xinjiang Victims Database tweeted last week that Memet had been sentenced to 13…

The Department of Homeland Security has banned imports into the United States of goods produced by a Chinese battery maker and a spice maker due to their alleged use of forced Uyghur labor, prompting complaints from China’s foreign ministry about a smear campaign. Goods made by Camel Group Co., Ltd., a battery maker, and Chenguang Biotech Group Co., Ltd., a spice maker, can no longer be legally imported into the United States as of Wednesday, with the two firms being added to the Entity List in accordance with the Uyghur…

A Uyghur woman arrested in July by authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region for complaining about her son’s lengthy jail sentence is in detention, one of her relatives and a local police official said. State security police in the city’s Tengritagh district apprehended Rahile Jalalidin on July 22, according to information from the Norway-based Uyghur Hjelp, also known as the Uyghuryar Foundation, which maintains a list of Uyghurs arrested and detained by authorities in Xinjiang.  Jalalidin, who lived at the Expatriate Hotel Complex in Urumqi, was upset over the sentencing…

A bill re-introduced to Congress by two lawmakers on Tuesday would expand U.S. sanctions to include foreign companies that do business with entities identified as contributing to human rights violations against ethnic Uyghurs in China’s Far West. The proposed law, the Sanctioning Supporters of Slave Labor Act, would authorize U.S. government agencies to impose secondary sanctions on companies or individuals that have transactions with sanctioned entities, such as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or XPCC, the biggest state-owned enterprise in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.  If it passes, any…

About 90 Uyghur teenage girls are locked up in a Chinese-run garment factory in Xinjiang, where they are forced to toil 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and routinely face verbal and physical abuse, an investigation by Radio Free Asia has found. The Wanhe Garments Co. Ltd. in Maralbeshi county has a secret agreement with the nearby Yarkent 2nd Vocational High School under which female students aged 16 to 18 are sent to work at the factory against their will, according to four sources, including a village chief…

In the latest “strike hard” campaign in Xinjiang, authorities are cracking down on any gatherings of more than 30 people and say it will last 100 days, according to Chinese media and two police officers in the region, in the latest effort to persecute the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs who live there.   China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in its far western region of Xinjiang that include police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices and curbs on the culture and language of the ethnic minority group. Reports about the start…