This week, yet another foreign secretary has justified engaging with the perpetrators of genocide, on the basis that going to Beijing would allow them to raise concerns in private. According to an official statement, James Cleverly made clear the UK’s “strength of feeling about the mass incarceration of the Uyghur people” in his bilateral meetings with senior Chinese government figures. Once again, this has shown China that when it comes to the mass contravention of human rights, the UK government has nothing but words in response and fails to stand…
Tag: Uyghurs
Travel firms urged to halt trips to Uyghur region over China rights abuses
Uyghur advocates have called on western tourism companies to stop selling package holidays that take visitors through Xinjiang, where human rights abuses by authorities have been called a genocide by some governments. The request comes as China reopens to foreign visitors after the pandemic, and as its leader, Xi Jinping, calls for more tourism to the region. A report by the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), released on Wednesday, said western tourism to the region risked supporting the normalisation of Chinese government policies that were “intended to destroy the…
Xi urges more work to ‘control illegal religious activities’ in Xinjiang on surprise visit
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has made a surprise visit to Xinjiang, urging officials in the region to conserve “hard won social stability” and deepen efforts in controlling “illegal religious activities”. It was only his second visit since launching an extreme crackdown on the area’s Uyghur and Turkic Muslim population almost a decade ago. Xi arrived in the city of Urumqi on Saturday, according to Chinese state media, where he heard a government work report and made a speech to Communist party and government officials. During his visit, Xi urged…
China wants to erase Tibet. Will Britain stay quiet about this crime? | Simon Tisdall
Last week’s US sanctioning of Chinese officials involved in Beijing’s ongoing criminal efforts to erase Tibet as a separate political, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious entity showed America at its best. Few other governments give a hoot. Most cravenly look the other way. Citing a recent UN report on the “forced assimilation” of one million Tibetan children ordered into Mandarin-language state boarding schools far from their homes and families, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, demanded China stop trying to eradicate Tibet’s distinct identity. “We urge PRC [People’s Republic…
Uyghur News Recap: Aug. 18-25, 2023
WASHINGTON — Here’s a summary of Uyghur-related news from around the world this week: Uyghur Activist Learns of Father’s Passing in Xinjiang Months Later Uyghur activist Abdulhakim Idris has learned of his father’s death seven months after it occurred in China’s Xinjiang region. Abdulhakim, the executive director of the Center of Uyghur Studies in the U.S., was informed this month by an anonymous source that his father died in January. His contact with his father had been cut since a 2017 call, with most of his family detained by Chinese…
Activists Cite Increasing Arrests of Uyghurs with Turkish Connections
WASHINGTON — For years Turkey has been a haven for Uyghurs fleeing China, in part because Ankara sees members of the ethnic group as fellow Turkic Muslims, refusing to extradite asylum seekers to China. But some Uyghurs say there has been a marked increase in recent months of arrests specifically aimed at Uyghurs who have pursued studies abroad, especially in Turkey. “In recent months, our organization has received detailed information of more than 10 Uyghurs who were apprehended in recent months,” said Abduweli Ayup, founder of Norway-based rights group Uyghur…
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night review – the Uyghurs’ fight for survival in a society where repression is routine
A group of Uyghur friends are having a late-night chat. “I wish the Chinese would just conquer the world,” one says suddenly. “Why do you say that?” another asks, surprised. “The world doesn’t care what happens to us,” the first man replies. “Since we can’t have freedom anyway, let the whole world taste subjugation. Then we would all be the same. We wouldn’t be alone in our suffering.” It is an understandable outburst of bitterness. The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority who live mainly in China’s north-western Xinjiang region. They…
Uyghur News Recap: Aug. 4 – 11, 2023
WASHINGTON — MIT Receives Funding from SenseTime Amid Uyghur Genocide Sanctions The Massachusetts Institute of Technology received funding from China’s SenseTime for facial recognition technology, despite sanctions on the Chinese AI company related to alleged Uyghur genocide. SenseTime’s technology has allegedly been used to track Uyghurs in China. MIT sustained its collaboration with the company, leading to the publication of 20 related tech papers, despite the U.S. sanctions, according to a review by The Washington Free Beacon. SenseTime utilized MIT’s research for patent filings. MIT said after SenseTime was sanctioned…
Uyghur News Recap: July 28 – Aug. 4, 2023
WASHINGTON — Chinese Police Pressure Uyghurs to Spy on Activists Using Threats Researchers have revealed that China is employing a tactic known as transnational repression (TNR) to pressure Uyghurs living abroad into spying on human rights activists. The Chinese government allegedly uses threats against their families back home to ensure compliance and sets up communication between family members that would otherwise be impossible. One Uyghur refugee in the U.K. shared with the BBC how a Chinese police officer brokered a video call with his mother leaving him torn between being…
‘If I left, I’d have to go without a word’: how I escaped China’s mass arrests
One day in mid-March 2017, I had just finished giving my weekly lecture on film directing at Xinjiang Arts Institute in Urumqi when my wife called. She told me that our friend Dilber had arrived from Kashgar, in south-west Xinjiang, and that she was headed to the front gate of the Arts Institute to meet her. Dilber was the hospitality director of a famous Kashgar hotel. While shooting the television series Kashgar Story the year before, our film crew had stayed at the hotel for two months. We chatted often…