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Tag: Xinjiang
UK solar could be ‘dumping ground’ for products of Chinese forced labour, ministers warned
The UK risks becoming a dumping ground for the products of forced labour from Xinjiang province in China if it rejects reforms by members of the foreign affairs select committee with cross-party support, ministers have been warned. An amendment to the energy bill, due to be debated on Tuesday, would require solar energy companies to prove their supply chains are free of slave labour. The Xinjiang region is the source of 35-40% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon, the key raw material in the solar photovoltaic supply chain. The amendment to…
TikTok removes 284 accounts linked to Chinese disinformation group
TikTok has removed 284 accounts associated with a Chinese disinformation campaign after Guardian Australia raised questions about several accounts uncovered by the company’s rival Meta. On Wednesday, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported it had shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with a Chinese political spam network that had targeted users in Australia and other parts of the world. During its investigation Meta uncovered the influence operation on more than 50 online platforms and forums including YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium,…
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…
‘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…
China, Myanmar and now Darfur … the horror of genocide is here again | Simon Tisdall
It’s happening again. In Darfur, scene of a genocide that killed 300,000 people and displaced millions 20 years ago, armed militias are on the rampage once more. Now, as then, they are targeting ethnic African tribes, murdering, raping and stealing with impunity. “They” are nomadic, ethnic Arab raiders, the much-feared “devils on horseback” – except now they ride in trucks. They’re called the Janjaweed. And they’re back. How is it possible such horrors can be repeated? The world condemned the 2003 slaughter. The UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
Uyghur student convicted after posting protests video on WeChat
A Uyghur student who was detained in Xinjiang in December after posting a video on WeChat of the “white paper” protests has been convicted of “advocating extremism”. Kamile Wayit, 19, was detained in Atush on 12 December the day after returning home from university in Henan, a province in central China. She has not been heard from since, but last week a spokesperson from China’s ministry for foreign affairs confirmed to the Economist magazine that Wayit had been sentenced on 25 March “for the crime of advocating extremism”. The spokesperson…
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…