The Uyghur Muslim Crisis; How to Help

TW: Genocide, Rape, Abuse, Sexual Assault

Indonesian Muslims protesting for the rights of Uyghur Muslims. Photo: Chaideer Mayhudda.

China is brutally persecuting millions of Uyghur Muslims. They are taken from their homes and put in ‘Re-education camps’ where their religion is outlawed, organs are harvested, hair is sold, children kept away from them, their women raped, forcibly married and sterilized. The media silences Uyghur Muslims' pleas of faith, and the world turns a blind eye to China's rampage on the Uyghur community.

Detainees awaiting directions within a political camp. Credit: Xinjiang Bureau of Justice WeChat Account.

Who are the Uyghur people?

The Uyghur, also spelled Uygur, Uighur, Uigur, Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر; Simplified Chinese: 维吾尔; Traditional Chinese: 維吾爾; pinyin: Wéiwú'ěr, are a Turkic people of Central Asia. Following the collapse of the Uyghur Empire in 840 CE, Uigur refugees established three states, the Ganzhou Kingdom, the Karakhoja Kingdom, and the Great Khans Dynasty. The Ganzhou kingdom (870- 1036 CE), located in the Gansu province of China, with its capital close to modern Zhangye, was the eastern-most of the three Uyghur states. The Uighur people of Ganzhou “converted from Manicheism to Lamaism, Tibetan and Mongol Buddhism.” Unlike those further west, they did not convert to Islam later on. In modern times, their descendants are called “Yugurs (裕固族) (or Yogir, Yugor, and Sary Uyghurs, meaning “yellow Uyghurs,” hinting to their yellow hair), and are distinct from modern Uyghurs. The Yugur people were defeated in 1028-1036 CE and forced to integrate into the Tangut kingdom.

The Karakhoja kingdom, formed around 856-866 CE, also known as the “Idiqut” state, meaning “Holy Wealth, Glory” was based around four different cities. Turfan was the winter capital, Beshbalik was the summer capital, and then the cities of Kumul and Kucha. A Buddhist state, with state-sponsored Buddhism and Manichaeism, it can be considered the epicenter of Uyghur culture. The Karakhoja rulers, known as the Idiquts, ruled until 1209, when they submitted to the Mongols under Genghis Khan and, as vassal rulers, existed until 1335.

The Great Khans Dynasty, also known as the Karahans or the Kara-Khanids, was the western-most Uyghur state. The Karahans (Karakhanliks) originated from Uyghur tribes settled in the Chu River Valley after 840 and ruled between 940-1212 in Turkistan and Maveraünnehir. The Karahans converted to Islam in 934, under the rule of Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan (920-956), and in 940, built a federation with Muslim institutions. Along with the Samanids of Samarkand, they considered themselves the protectors of Islam against the Buddhist Idiqut and the Buddhist Scythian-Tocharian kingdom of Khotan. The first capital city of the Great Khans Dynasty was in the city of Balasagun in the Chu River Valley, and later it would become Kashgar. Most inhabitants of the Besh Balik and Turfan regions did not convert to Islam until the fifteenth-century expansion of the Yarkand Khanate, a Turko-Mongol successor state based in western Tarim. Uyghurs were Manichaeans, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, or Nestorian Christians before converting to Islam.

Separatism and Re-education in Camps

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, China voiced support for the United States in the war on terror. The Chinese government has often referred to Uyghur nationalists as ‘terrorists.’ Society has normalized the antagonization of Muslims around the world for too long. According to the U.S government and human rights organizations in 2019, around 10 percent of the Uighur population in Xinjiang is locked up. There are at least 800,000-and possibly even 2 million-people in these camps. The point of these ‘re-education camps’ is to change the minds and thoughts of those who are forced to live there. According to Bu’ayixiemu Abulizi, director of the Moyu County Vocational Education and Training Center in Hotan Prefecture in Xinjiang, “[i]f we leave the terrorism thoughts to be developed, it is very easy to have riots or other issues. We prevent this from happening. Our center is to prevent terrorism thoughts from happening.” However, this is not what the Uyghur people in these camps are experiencing. Mihrigul Tursun, a survivor from one of the concentration camps in Xinjiang, recalled that she was “questioned by the police, tortured, subjected to electric shock and physically abused for three days.” According to the Pitt News, “witnessing death and torture was not uncommon in the camps. In the three months that Tursan was within the camp, she saw nine women die. She said she met one woman who was imprisoned for 19 months.‘They didn’t let her go out to see the sun once. They didn’t let her shower for over a year,’ Tursun said. ‘This is not a detention camp. They kill us here.’ She added that she saw many familiar faces in the camp.”

Tortures in some of these camps include but are not limited to waterboarding, sexual abuse, forced abortions and contraceptions, starvation, and forced labor. The Chinese government is trying to enforce an atheist communist ideology and kill off Islam. One of the ways they are doing this is by requiring women in ‘re-education camps’ to have forced abortions. Earlier this week, an Uyghur doctor told ITV News her disturbing testimony of ‘forced abortions and removal of wombs’ in China. The doctor says that for much of her career she worked for the Chinese government as part of its population control plan to restrict and limit the growth of the Uyghur Muslim population. The doctor claims to have participated in at least 500 to 600 operations on Uyghur women. These included forced contraception, forced abortion, forced [sterilization], and forced womb removal. The doctor told ITV News that on one disturbing occasion, the baby was still moving when it was discarded into the rubbish bin. Birth rates in some Uyghur regions are said to have fallen by 60%, and across China, the fall is over 4%.

How You Can Help

1. Write to your local government officials demanding change. Their contact information can be found upon your local state government's official website. If we do not demand this genocide to stop within America alone, other crucial countries will continue to turn a blind eye to the killings of Uyghurs in China.

A sampling of the 38 companies with products credibly connected to forced Uyghur labor. Credit: VOC.

2. Do your research on the companies you support, and stop supporting ones that use Uyghur labor. Take this as an opportunity to support your local small businesses instead.

3. Donate to organizations working to stop the genocide of Uyghurs, such as the Uyhgur Human Rights Project and Save Uighur.

4. As always, the best easy to help is to raise awareness. Educate yourself on what is happening to Uyghurs in China, as well as others. Post on social media, organize protests, sign petitions, and don't be afraid to be political.

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Sources

• Abbas, Rushan. Children Snatched, Women Raped: China Continues to Treat Uyghur Muslims as Slaves for Its Luxury Industry, 6 Sept. 2020, www.msn.com/en-in/news/opinion/children-snatched-women-raped-china-continues-to-treat-uyghur-muslims-as-slaves-for-its-luxury-industry/ar-BB18KGk8.

• Chaudhry, Anushay. “'They Kill Us Here': Survivor of Uyghur Concentration Camps Recounts Torture.” The Pitt News, 2 Sept. 2020, pittnews.com/article/159614/featured/they-kill-us-here-survivor-of-uyghur-concentration-camps-recounts-torture/.

• Editor, News. “Xinjiang: Uyghur Muslims Suffer Forced Sterilisation, Abortions, and Removal of Wombs.” Islam21c, 6 Sept. 2020, www.islam21c.com/news-views/xinjiang-uyghur-muslims-suffer-forced-sterilisation-abortions-and-removal-of-wombs/.

• Simmons, Keir. “Inside Chinese Camps Thought to Be Detaining a Million Muslim Uighurs.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 8 Oct. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-chinese-camps-thought-detain-million-muslim-uighurs-n1062321.

• “Uyghur People.” Uyghur People - New World Encyclopedia, New World Encyclopedia, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Uyghur_people.