Author: Chin@Strategy

China has expanded its forced labor transfer program in far-western Xinjiang – moving Uyghurs from rural areas to work in factories – and plans to continue doing so through 2025, a new report says, warning that it will have far-reaching consequences for the 11-million strong ethnic minority. Under a program that Beijing says is aimed at poverty alleviation, high-level Chinese policy and state planning documents call for intensified employment requirements targeting Uyghurs, according to research conducted by German scholar Adrian Zenz published in a report by the Jamestown Foundation, a…

Authorities in Turkey have arrested six people believed to be spying on members of the Uyghur community in Istanbul for Chinese intelligence, according to media reports. Members of the Istanbul Anti-Terrorism and Organized Crime Directorate apprehended the six Chinese nationals early on Tuesday, Turkey’s Demiroren News Agency said in a report, citing information provided by the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey. The group is accused of gathering information about Uyghur organizations, their leaders, and public figures, and transmitting it to Chinese intelligence operatives, the report said. Another suspect remains at…

A judge on Wednesday ordered Thailand’s corrections system to provide two Uyghur terrorism suspects with the Halal food they have been requesting for years, as the pair appeared in court visibly emaciated and in wheelchairs. Defendants Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili are accused of carrying out the Aug. 17, 2015, bombing at the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok that killed 20 people and injured scores more, just weeks after Thai authorities forcibly sent almost 100 Uyghur Muslims to China. They have been in custody since their arrests within two weeks…

Tursun Muhammad was thirteen when political persecution forced his family to leave their prosperous farm in Yarkant, Xinjiang, and flee over the Pamir Mountains. Tursun’s father was targeted during the Cultural Revolution for his wealth and the fact that he was a landlord, Tursun told RFA. After attending Friday prayer at the local mosque he was locked up for three days. So, he packed up his family and left Yarkant to journey into Afghanistan.  It took 45 days to reach Kabul. So high are the Pamir ranges that they are…

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that would require the State Department to offer Uyghur language classes to diplomats, place Uyghur speakers in all consulates in China and include Uyghurs in speaking programs in Muslim-majority countries. The latest version of the Uyghur Policy Act, which has been introduced in past sessions of Congress without success, passed the House 414-6, but still faces a long journey in the Senate to become law. Rep. Young Kim, a Republican from California, and Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, led the introduction…

The German auto giant Volkswagen is facing renewed accusations of using Uyghur forced labor, as new evidence directly implicates its use of slave labor in the construction of a test track in Xinjiang, where brainwashing, surveillance and assimilation measures on employees were implemented. The evidence from Adrian Zenz, a German scholar in Xinjiang internment camps, revealed that SAIC-Volkswagen’s test track in Turpan in Xinjiang  was built using transferred Uyghur laborers. SAIC-Volkswagen, headquartered in Anting, Shanghai, China, is a joint venture between China’s state-owned SAIC Motor and Volkswagen Group. “The VW…

For the first time, China’s state broadcaster filmed a portion of its must-watch Lunar New Year TV gala live from the far-western region of Xinjiang, featuring a famous Uyghur actress and dozens of dancers performing a medley of songs. The six-minute segment, “Dance Music from Xinjiang” – set in the historic city of Kashgar, once a Silk Road trading post – was meant to show “the cultural diversity and beauty of this region through its folk songs & dances,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on X. Except that very…

When Uyghur businessman Obulhashim Tursun decided to expand his business buying and selling spices, he set his sights on Iran. Obulhashim, then 26, traveled to the theocratic republic in early 2018, but only got so far as the airport after he landed on March 7. Security officials at Imam Khomeini International Airport, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the country’s capital Tehran, detained him and forcibly returned him to China after 20 days of interrogation, his brother Obulqasim Tursun, a Uyghur expatriate residing in Turkey, told Radio Free Asia.…

“Home” means different things to young Uyghurs – some of whom may have not even visited their ancestral homeland in China’s far western Xinjiang region. That was the theme of the latest annual art competition for Uyghur artists and others held by the Uyghur Collective, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based youth group that has organized the annual event since 2019. Uyghur artist Gülnaz Tursun from Kazakhstan expressed admiration for the young artists’ sense of pride in being Uyghur, evident in their creations.  “This art contest has a great theme, with each painting…

Major automakers including Toyota, General Motors, Tesla, BYD and Volkswagen may be using aluminum made by Ugyhur forced labor in China and have failed to minimize this possibility, Human Rights Watch said in a report. Nearly 10% of the world’s aluminum is produced in Xinjiang, in China’s northwest, where Uyghurs and other minorities are subjected to forced labor in detention centers or through Chinese government-backed labor transfer programs that Beijing says are to alleviate poverty, according to the 99-page report, “Asleep at the Wheel: Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor…