A contemporary Chinese road map of East Turkestan or Uyghur. To the PRC, this region is called "Xin Jiang" which literally means "New Territory" in Chinese.
We, at The Snow Lion Foundation, are very concerned about the deplorable human rights situation currently on-going inside East Turkestan since the 1949 communist Chinese invasion of this once independent nation of some 11 to 30 million people. None of what we are talking about here is really news. Our goal is simply to let more people know within the human rights community that the Uyghur people are suffering and can not be over-looked. The Human rights and freedom crisis within the PRC empire is not just a Tibetan, Falun Gong or potentially a Taiwanese issue. It includes the plight of the Uyghur people as well.
We support the peaceful and positive resolution to the sorrowful Chinese occupation and violent human rights nightmare that has become the last 60 years of East Turkestan's history under communist CCP rule. Prominant Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer has been a powerful advocate for the peaceful change. We invite all of our readers to learn more about this very special woman, her imprisonment by the Chinese and her eventual triumph against all the odds.
The Uyghur people have their own language and culture which is completely separate and distinct from the Han people of China. They have their own unique identity which is deeply molded around a peaceful practice of the Islamic faith which must be preserved and safe-guarded. Their call for independence and freedom is no less significant and justified than that of any other oppressed people. We call upon the UN and all governments and NGO's world-wide to pay more attention to this lost nation north of Tibet whose people also cry out in desperate need.
Some known human rights and freedoms abuses inside East Turkestan / Uyghur:
1. Forced abortions and sterilizations 2. Forced labor for women of child-bearing age to the coastal manufacturing Chinese provinces 3. Religious persecution and suppression of Islam 4. Cultural suppression and forced assimilation 5. Ethnic re-settlement of Han Chinese inside East Turkestan / Uyghur 6. Prison and torture for political prisoners and religious practitioners 7. No freedom of speech and assembly 8. Massive ecological degradation / East Turkestan is China's nuclear testing field 9. No rights to self-determination based on the UN Charter 1.2 10. "Patriotic Education" and thought control
The Chinese claim that any out-cry by the Uyghurs constitutes a "terrorist" act. We do not believe this and neither should the rest of the world.
The Chinese are simply using post-911 hysteria to their own self-serving advantage to continue their crack down in East Turkestan against freedom. The world needs to wake up here and no longer remain fooled. Not every Muslim in the world is a terrorist and wages Jihad. For the vast majority of the people who live in Uyghur, they are just regular people like anyone else on the planet who seek only their own happiness and destiny. It is, in fact, the communist Chinese who are the real terrorists.
If there are Uyghur groups that endorse the use of terrorism and/or violence, we do not endorse them in any way! These tactics are always destructive and never yield positive lasting results.
The communist Chinese are the best example of the complete and eventual failure of the use of terrorism and violence. Just as in Tibet, the PRC has still to win its losing war of occupation in East Turkestan. In both regions today, the only thing that the PRC's violence and killing has yielded for the Motherland are resentful captive populations just waiting for the chance to liberate themselves who will never ever view themselves as Chinese.
Provided below are two interesting articles we found.
The first article is the text from a very informative speech recently given by Dolkun Isa on the current state of affairs for the Uyghur people at the UNPO or Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization earlier this month.
The second article is a recent news report we felt typifies information we see coming out of Uyghur. We invite you to do your own research and learn more about the Uyghur human rights and freedoms situation. We thank you for taking the time to learn more about these comparatively forgotten people and the suffering they have to endure. Becoming aware is the first step on the road to implementing and living the positive beneficial change we wish to see in the world around us.
The Status of Human Rights of Uyghurs in China by Dolkun Isa March 11, 2009 Ladies and Gentleman, It is my honor to be here and to speak about Uyghur Human Rights issue today. First of all, I would like to express warm regarding to all you from Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, President of World Uyghur Congress. As most of you know, the Uyghurs are the indigenous people of East Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. East Turkistan has been occupied by Communist China since 1949. The territorial size is 1,818,000 square kilometers which is 5 times the size of Germany, This year is 60 years of communist Chinese occupation of East Turkistan. Since 60 years, the fundamental human rights and the freedoms of the Uyghurs including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights continue to be violated. With the steady flow of Chinese settlers into East Turkestan, the Uyghurs are faced with the danger of becoming a small minority in their own country and thereby losing their cultural identity. The Uyghurs in East Turkistan face human rights abuses including arbitrary detention and imprisonment, religious repression, economic and educational discrimination, and the steady eradication of Uyghur language and culture from public life, and the forced sterilization of Uyghur women. Uyghur language schools are being closed and Uyghur teachers are being forced out of their jobs.The religious expression of Uyghurs is strictly controlled by Government authorities. The government also supports the immigration of scores of Han Chinese migrants, despite high levels of local unemployment, while at the same time the government supports policies to move Uyghurs out of their homeland, including an initiative to move large numbers of young women of marriage age to work as cheap labor in Eastern China. The Beijing Olympic Games are over. The Chinese government has completely failed to keep its promise to respect human rights; although the world's attention was concentrated on the human rights situation in China before and during the Games and the international community had hoped China would improve its human rights record. Instead, the situation has dramatically worsened. The imposition of strict restrictions on civil liberties as well as a massive campaign of arbitrary arrests in East Turkestan both in the name of "Olympic security" have contributed to the grossly deteriorating human rights situation. On August 14, 2008, in a speech, Wang Lequan, the Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, stated that the Chinese government authorities face a "life or death" struggle to quell Uyghur unrest. According to the Hong Kong-based InformationCenter for Human Rights and Democracy, by the end of August, 2008, Chinese government authorities were mobilizing 200,000 public security officers and armed police in East Turkestan. What we have seen since August, 2008 is a following through on Wang Lequan's call for a "life and death struggle". In its annual country reports on human rights abuses, the U.S. State Department has highlighted human rights abuses by Chinese government authorities in East Turkestan, including the use of the legal system as a tool of repression against Uyghurs. At an October 21, 2008 briefing by Ministry of Public Security spokesman, Wu Heping, Chinese authorities announced the names of eight Uyghurs wanted for "plotting, organizing and executing various terrorist activities targeting the Beijing Olympic Games". On December 17, 2008 Abdurahman Azat and Kurbanjan Hemit were sentenced by the Intermediate People's Court of Kashgar to death for "intentional homicide and illegally producing guns, ammunition and explosives". Abdurahman Azat and Kurbanjan Hemit had been detained for allegedly carrying out an August 4, 2008 attack in Kashgar in which sixteen armed police were killed. On January 4, 2009, The Procuratorial Daily reported that nearly 1,300 people were arrested in East Turkestan on state security crimes in 2008, marking a steep increase over previous years. Of the nearly 1,300 arrests made, 1,154 were formally charged and faced trials or administrative punishment. According to the People's Republic of China's national statistics bureau, only 742 people were arrested on state security crimes throughout the entire country in 2007, and 619 of these were indicted. Almost exactly a year ago, on January 18, 2008, Rozi Ismail, the chief justice of the Xinjiang Supreme Court, announced that the Chinese security forces dealt with more one thousand "anti-government" cases and arrested more than 15,000 Uyghurs in the past five years. We would like to present you with the facts since the beginning of 2008 until the opening of the 2008 Olympics. These facts are solely the information made public by the Chinese government.
- On January 17, 2008, Chinese armed police forces killed five Uyghurs and captured 18 in the PamirMountains.
- On January 27, 2008, a peaceful gathering of a group of Uyghurs was attacked by Chinese security forces. As a result two Uyghurs were killed, six were wounded and another ten were arrested.
- In the following days after a demonstration by Uyghur women on March 23 - 24, 2008 in Hotan, Chinese police arrested approximately 700 demonstrators.
- On July 9, 2008, Chinese police stormed a building where a number of Uyghurs were meeting for a religious gathering. Five Uyghurs were killed, two injured and another eight arrested.
- Chinese authorities sentence five Uyghurs with the death penalty sentence July 9, 2008, including Mr. Abduweli Imin and Mr. Muhter Setiwaldi, in a public announcement made by Kashgar Peoples Court. China has continued to disrespect national and international laws and has continued its pursuit of heavy-handed repression against the people of East Turkestan. Relentless "Strike Hard" campaigns by Chinese security forces have pushed some Uyghurs into desperation and few to a point of no return. As a result, some individual Uyghurs attacked Chinese military and government targets in Kashgar on August 4, 2008, and in Kucha on August 10, 2008. After these attacks the Chinese authorities declared virtual martial law in these cities and began to detain and arrest large numbers of Uyghurs. Such unjustified actions on the part of the Chinese authorities have created a vicious cycle and further escalated the tension between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government. After the end of the Olympic Games, Chinese authorities began to conduct house-to-house searches. The deputy minister of the Ministry for Public Security was set up a special working group in Kucha, and leading the "sweeping operations" in Kucha and in Kashgar. More than 1000 individuals have been officially arrested, and even more people were temporarily being held in local government building in several villages in the region. Uyghurs have also experienced further curbs on freedom of speech. XinjiangUniversity police arrested Miradil Yasin, 20, and Mutellip Teyip, 19, on December 20, 2008, in relation to the organization of a peaceful protest. The two university students were arrested in the regional capital of Urumchi for distributing leaflets on the XinjiangUniversity campus urging students to join in a peaceful demonstration. Miradil Yasin, 20, and Mutellip Teyip, 19, were transferred to the Urumchi Public Security Bureau after their arrest for further investigation and interrogation. On December 24, 2008, Xinjiang University held a special ceremony commending the police officers for arresting Miradil Yasin and Mutellip Teyip, and awarded 5,000 Yuan each to police officers Ilyar Ablimit, Niyazmuhemmet Imam and Wang Bing. Underscoring the official significance attached to the drive to prevent any type of peaceful protest, top university officials and relevant Urumchi and provincial government officials attended the ceremony. Xinjiang University Party Secretary Zhang Xianliang stated during the ceremony that Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Party Secretary Wang Lequan was extremely pleased with the university's extraordinary efforts in preventing the potential protest.
There is no way for Uyghurs in East Turkestan to express their legitimate grievances in a peaceful manner because the Chinese authorities label all forms of dissent by Uyghurs as "terrorism". For this reason, Uyghurs whose rights are being arbitrarily violated, who continuously suffer injustice and even execution without any legal process, have been left without any official channel to seek redress for their grievances. We, the World Uyghur Congress, are extremely worried about the further escalation of the current situation. We insist on the use of peaceful means to gain the right of self-determination for the Uyghur people, respect of international law, and taking actions in the international framework. However, China is constantly using violent crack-down on the Uyghur people due to the lack of pressure by the international community on the Chinese government to halt its state-sponsored violence on the entire Uyghur population.
The Uyghur people are in a desperate situation, considering the current massive crack-down launched by the Chinese authorities, especially the fierce repression of innocent people. If the situation continues to go on, it could possibly lead to further violence, which will result the loss of innocent lives, and impairment to the peace and stability of the region. We appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the international community, the European Union, and all the democratic nations in the free world to take action to halt the Chinese government's ongoing violent crack-down in East Turkestan. The international community, especially European Union should play an active role in preventing China from further crack-down and killings in East Turkestan. The international community should encourage China to start dialogue with the representatives of WUC to peacefully resolve the current issues and the future status of East Turkestan. China cracks down in the Muslim west March 30, 2009
BEIJING (AP) An overseas rights activist said Monday that authorities in China's predominantly Muslim far west are closing unregistered Islamic schools and conducting house-to-house searches in a new security crackdown in the restive region.
The campaign under way for five weeks in the city of Hotan underscores Beijing's persisting concerns about separatist movements in its Central Asian border province of Xinjiang.
While anti-government protests and a security clamp-down in Tibetan areas have grabbed attention over the past year, China has also been battling unrest in Xinjiang, with a flare-up in violence last year that killed 33 people. Like the Tibetans, many of Xinjiang's ethnic minority Uighurs have chafed under Beijing's rule and restrictions on the practice of religion.
The clamp-down in Hotan, once a jade-trading center on the Silk Road and still a bastion of Uighur culture, was meant to quash dissent before August's anniversary marking communist troops' entry to Xinjiang 60 years ago, the German-based World Uighur Congress said Monday.
A congress spokesman, Dilxat Raxit, said in an e-mail that armed police were making nighttime raids from house to house. At least seven religious schools have been shut and 39 people arrested so far, Raxit said.
The official Xinhua News Agency earlier this month reported that Hotan authorities had launched a campaign against "illegal religious activity" at the end of February and "had already achieved some initial success."
"Officials uncovered some illegal religious activities, seized a large number of illegal books, handwritten materials, computer discs, audio tapes and other propaganda materials as well as bullets, fuses, explosive and flammable materials, and other weaponry," it said.
A secretary with Hotan's Communist Party Propaganda Department on Monday denied that any religious schools were closed, people arrested or bullets, explosives and other materials seized. But he confirmed that some illegal religious activity has been halted and illegal books, writings, computer discs and audio tapes had been confiscated.
He refused to give his name or any more information and referred calls to other departments where the phone rang unanswered or officials said they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The clamp-down is consistent with previous efforts to target a resurgent Islam that the government says is fanning radical, violent separatism in Xinjiang. A year ago, several hundred Muslims staged a protest in Hotan that rights groups said was against a ban on women wearing headscarves but that the government said was incited by an overseas Islamic group.
Uighur separatists have waged a low-intensity campaign of sporadic bombings and assassinations for the past 20 years as social controls loosened along with free-market reforms and as more ethnic Chinese came to Xinjiang in search of work.
Last August, violence in Xinjiang killed 33 people, including 16 border guards slain when two attackers rammed a stolen truck into the group before tossing bombs and stabbing them.
Former President George Bush with Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent international leader of Uyghur people. She is the president of the World Uyghur Congress. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Congressman Chris Smith had this to say about Rebiya Kadeer and her work for a peaceful resolution to the Uyghur human rights crisis: "At turning points in history... one honest and courageous man or woman often comes to represent the entire people in the eyes of the world... For the Uyghur people, deprived of their religious freedom, robbed of their cultural and linguistic rights and marginalized in their own homeland by the government organized Han Chinese migration, it is Rebiya Kadeer."
