Hundreds of police have clashed with protesters in a Muslim town in south-west China over anger at plans to partially dismantle a 14th-century mosque. The unrest broke out on Saturday, seemingly in response to attempts by the authorities to dismantle parts of Najiaying mosque in Nagu, a town in Yunnan province. In 2020, a court ruled that recent additions to the mosque, including a domed roof and minarets, were illegal and should be removed. But when the deconstruction work started over the weekend, local people in Nagu, which is populated…
Tag: Islam
The Guardian view on India at a crossroads: development, not dictatorship | Editorial
Becoming the world’s most populous nation allows India to burnish its credentials as a global economic and political heavyweight. With a population that is much younger than those of China, the US and the EU, there will be renewed interest in India’s potential to be a beacon of liberal values. The west is eager to draw a democratic giant into its orbit. China and India will together account for about half of all global growth this year. But India risks emulating its bigger northern neighbour’s economic ascent under tight political…
Parliament says China is committing a genocide. Why were officials planning to meet one of the perpetrators? | James McMurray
The oppression of the Uyghurs and other Turkic and Islamic minority people in China’s Xinjiang region has come into stark focus over the past five years. First, minorities were interned in “re-education facilities” for indeterminate periods. Then came evidence of Chinese “minders” being sent to live with Uyghur families and report on their behaviour, of checkpoints on pedestrian streets, face-scanning cameras, the enforced installation of state spyware on personal phones, forced controls on fertility and the closing or demolition of mosques and other religious sites. Throughout all this, a man…
Iain Duncan Smith accuses Xinjiang governor of ‘murder’ at Uyghur protest
Iain Duncan Smith has accused the Chinese governor of Xinjiang of murder as he joined Uyghur activists protesting against his reported visit to Britain. Demonstrators gathered outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on Monday after it emerged that Erkin Tuniyaz, the chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, could meet UK officials, a scenario Duncan Smith branded “unacceptable”. Tuniyaz was expected to come to the UK this week, according to the reports, with some speculating he has already arrived. The UN has accused China of “serious human rights…
Cross-party MPs shocked by Foreign Office talks with Xinjiang governor
The Foreign Office has shocked cross-party opponents of the Chinese treatment of Uyghur groups by revealing that it has asked the Xinjiang governor for talks. MPs belonging to the inter-parliamentary alliance on China (Ipac) called it “incomprehensible” that “anybody within government would think it appropriate to meet with someone who has played a central role in the persecution of Uyghurs – crimes our own parliament has declared to be genocide”. According to an email from the Foreign Office, Erkin Tuniyaz – who has been sanctioned by the US – is…
Major funds exposed to companies allegedly engaged in Uyghur repression in China
Many of the world’s largest asset managers and state pension funds are passively investing in companies that have allegedly engaged in the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China, according to a new report. The report, by UK-based group Hong Kong Watch and the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, found that three major stock indexes provided by MSCI include at least 13 companies that have allegedly used forced labour or been involved in the construction of the surveillance state in China’s Xinjiang region. In recent years,…
West weighs calling for China Uyghur abuses inquiry at UN
Western powers are weighing the risk of a potential defeat if they table a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by China in Xinjiang. The issue is a litmus case for Chinese influence at the UN, as well as the willingness of the UN to endorse a worldview that protects individual rights from authoritarian states. The outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, issued a report on her last day in office – 31 August – claiming there…
Lawyer criticises UN report’s failure to call Uyghur oppression ‘genocide’
The UN’s failure to mention the word genocide in its report alleging serious human rights violations by China against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province is an “astonishing” lapse, according to a leading British human rights lawyer. The 45-page report from the outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, landed minutes before her term ended on Wednesday, outlining allegations of torture, including forced medical procedures, as well as sexual violence against Uyghur Muslims. The report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), concluded the “arbitrary and discriminatory”…
‘The world must boycott’: Australian Uyghur calls for more pressure on Beijing Games
What Almas Nizamidin knows of his wife’s arrest and disappearance is second-hand: the harried reports relayed by his relatives as it rapidly unfolded. The police came for Buzainafu Abudourexiti at her home in Ürümqi as she was travelling to a doctor’s appointment on 29 March 2017. Her family called, she cancelled her appointment and hurried home. There, the police shoved a bag over her head, forced her into a car and drove her away. Her husband, her family, and her friends have not seen her since. She remains incarcerated in…
US hits China with new trade curbs and sanctions over forced Uyghur labour
The United States has unleashed a volley of actions to censure China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority, with lawmakers voting to curb trade and issuing new sanctions on Beijing. The United States has been ramping up pressure on China amid a crop of disputes, with president Joe Biden’s administration a day earlier targeting producers of painkillers that have contributed to America’s addiction crisis. The US Senate unanimously voted to make the United States the first country to ban virtually all imports from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region over concerns of the…