Solitary confinement, handcuffed and forced to stand in a 2×2 meters, or a 13-square-foot, cell for 24 hours. News is trickling out from Xinjiang, a province in northwest China, of human rights violations against the Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority.
In a 117-page report released on Monday and entitled Eradicating Ideological Viruses: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims, Human Rights Watch has called for the international community to impose sanctions on the world’s second-largest economy.
Up to one million Muslims have reportedly been detained, according to estimates from the non-governmental organization based in New York, the United Nations and United States government officials.
“I resisted their measures,” Nur, a former detainee in a political education camp, told Human Rights Watch.
“They put me in a small solitary confinement cell … In a space of about 2×2 meters, I was not given any food or drink, my hands were handcuffed [behind my] back, and I had to stand for 24 hours without sleep,” Nur, which is not the person’s real name because of fears of reprisals, added.
Four years ago, the Chinese government launched its “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Extremism” in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch reported.
But the level of “repression increased dramatically” after the Tibet Autonomous Region Communist Party Secretary, Chen Quanguo, moved to take control of Xinjiang in 2016, it claimed.
These allegations have been denied by Beijing.
‘Completely untrue’
“The argument that one million Uighurs are detained in re-education centers is completely untrue,” Hu Lianhe, a senior official of China’s Communist Party, told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. “There are no such things as re-education centers.”
Still, Human Rights Watch and the UN point to mounting evidence of a sprawling network of extrajudicial internment camps, where prisoners are subject to political and cultural indoctrination.
Security outside the restricted areas in Xinjiang has also tightened and now bears “a striking resemblance to those inside,” Maya Wang, a researcher for the NGO in Hong Kong, confirmed from interviews with former residents now living abroad.
“The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses on a scale unseen in the country in decades,” Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, said.
In response, Beijing has insisted that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists.
Last month, Kaiser Abdukerim, a member of the Chinese delegation and president of Xinjiang Medical University, told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that “social stability in the region” was paramount.
During the same two-day meeting in Geneva, Gay McDougall, who sits on the committee, cited harrowing reports before voicing concerns that Beijing had “turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp.”
Former inmates have painted a grim picture of human rights abuse.
Many faced months of indoctrination, and were forced to renounce Islam, criticize their own beliefs and recite Communist Party propaganda songs for hours each day.
‘Mass incarceration’
The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China has even described the situation as “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”
“They give a signal, that even if you’re in a foreign country, they can ‘manage’ you … I’m scared … I [have never belonged to a] terrorist [group] or any organization against China,” Murat, 37, a student living outside China and whose sister is in a political re-education camp, told Human Rights Watch.
“I didn’t join any demonstrations. I didn’t carry an East Turkestan flag. I have no criminal record in China … Why are they doing stuff like that [to me]?” Murat, which is not his real name because of the threat of reprisals, added.
To combat what many have described as a ‘lockdown’ of the Xinjiang autonomous region, Human Rights Watch would like to see “targeted sanctions” rolled out.
Indeed, Michelle Bachelet, the new head of the UN Human Rights Council, has called on China to allow monitors into the country following “deeply disturbing” allegations.
Yet it is unlikely that Beijing will be opening up “2×2-meter” cells to the rest of the world any time soon.
Yashad Rizvi 70 million – being a bit genereous there – he was worse than that ! Histories no1 mass kiler
Right on Yashad Rizvi. Low Shen-Cheang, you need to go to Washington to view the VICTIM OFCOMMUNIST’S MEMORIAL DEDICATED BY THE PRESIDENT BUSH not too long ago, or better yet you need to go to the city of Citadel Hue, Vietnam, look at what really happened, and ask yourself how many innocent people were buried alive in TET MAU THAN. Ask the people who lived in the city during TET MAU THAN!!!
The photo above is a fake and one can see that it has been made with photoshop or similar program.
Wood Wu, after being brain washed by the White supremacy, and your inferiority is making kowtowing to the White and kissing White’s behind willingly as a duty and pride. Comparing to the broken American society filled with inequality, violence, poverty, hypocrisy and without basic human compassion, China is indeed a paradise despite all its defects.
Yashad Rizvi : You have a good pair of eyes, Yashad. The Chinese love to boast about their paradise though the paradise contradicts their own philosophy: 士不为五斗米折腰。
Yashad Rizvi, why not, but the European, Aussie and the American are not allowing them in. All the anti non-White rhetorics and the rise of the White supremacist parties in Europe, US and Australia is quite a sight. Yashad Rizvi, they will kick you out from their land soon.
"Up to one million Muslims have reportedly been detained, according to estimates from the non-governmental organization based in New York, the United Nations and United States government officials."
If this isn’t enough justification for negating reports from Human Rights Watch as some sort of objective organization, I don’t know what is. A million detained people??? Really???
You simpy can’t used anonymous opposition sources to factually establish what is or isn’t happening. This was demonstrated over and over again in the reports on Syria’s supposed human rights abuses. Besides the obvious problem of the anonymous sources saying whatever they want, nothing of what they say can be corroborated, which is the basis of good journalism.
The final damming element in this story of propaganda is the timing and request for "sanctions". The author should be ashamed and disregarded for the propagandist he is.
Yashad Rizvi, the American and their western partners are the perpetrators of those 70m dead Chinese, because they sanctioned and embargoed food and medical supplies against China in order to Mao to allow them to keep their imperialist unequal treaties in China after the liberation of China led by Mao. The American and their western partners also fueled insurgents in China to overthrow Mao, which was another cause of that 70m dead Chinese.
China should correct it’s course in order to become great. Equal rights irrespective of race and religion is a must. USA forgot that and being trashed now. China should correct her actions against Rohynga and Uyghurs. or embrace the fate much quicker than USA
United States has the largest incarceration population in the world, extrapolated based on the Gordon Watts’ numbers, there must be a few millions of Americans poor, disadvantaged and Innocent detained in the razor barbed wire concentration camps and prisons dotted the American internal landscape. Why doesn’t Gordon Watts raise human rights for those incarcerated, aren’t they his country fellows as well as human being too?
If I were to go around telling everyone I had a big penis, you’d think at some point someone would ask to see it, or maybe a picture at least.
Yet the US (and UK, France) can say anything without any proof, day after day, week after week, year after year.
Please, can someone buy an iPhone and take some pictures?
Besides, does anyone really care about my penis except maybe a porn studio?
Buy oil from Iran with rupees and rials!
Happy new year Yashad ! How many Uighurs in Idlib ?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/…/the-strategic-aspect-of…
http://www.voltairenet.org/spip.php?page=recherche…
Another dopey opinion—–dude are you on the ground are is this more of your Journalistic FICTION!!!
Happy new year Yashad ! How many Uighurs in Idlib ?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/09/the-strategic-aspect-of-bashing-chinas-re-education-of-uyghurs.html
http://www.voltairenet.org/spip.php?page=recherche&lang=en&recherche=uighurs&x=4&y=6
Happy new year Yashad ! How many Uighurs are in Idlib ?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/09/the-strategic-aspect-of-bashing-chinas-re-education-of-uyghurs.html
Yes, they should prosecute war criminals… Iraq, Libya (I think you’ll find it’s spelt). Saddam, Khaddafi, both commited terrible crimes against their own people.
However, neither were on the scale of Mao who was responsible for the dead of 70m chinese.
So you admit the Uighurs want to leave the paradise of China ?
ANOTHER PROPAGANDA PIECE BY WATTS A CIA ASSET WRITING LIES FOR THE US AND ITS VASSAL THE UN . THE UIGURS ARE BEING USED AS A REGIME CHANGE TOOL AGAINST BEIJING.THE UIGURS HAVE AN OFFICE IN THE U.S CAPITOL FOR YRS ALREADY. THE US WANTS TO DRIVE A WEDGE INTO CHINA STARTING WITH THE UIGURS IN XIJIANG TO FOSTER A BREAKAWAY PROVINCE. NEXT [[IF NOT ALREADY]] YOU WILL SEE ALQUEDA AND OTHER TERROR CRIMINAL GROUPS SURFACING IN NW CHINA.
Accusation from people with no name? Only happen in the mind of plotters, and they want to bring it up to a kangaroo court. Why not they prosecute those who started or aided war that killed millons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, and Syria?