{"id":23007,"date":"2019-05-13T18:02:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T18:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jww.org\/?p=23007"},"modified":"2019-05-13T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T18:02:05","slug":"china-is-systematic-abusing-uyghur-muslims-the-u-s-must-pressure-them-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/china-is-systematic-abusing-uyghur-muslims-the-u-s-must-pressure-them-to-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"China is systematically abusing Uyghurs. The U.S. must pressure them to stop."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jewish World Watch intern Yasmin Liberman contributed to this report.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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In March 2017, China’s government launched a mass crackdown against the Uyghurs<\/a>, a Muslim ethnic minority group who live primarily in China\u2019s northwestern Xinjiang region, as well as other Turkic Muslim minorities in the region. The crackdown, allegedly a counter-extremism measure, includes implementation of a widespread arbitrary detention policy with the aim of \u201cre-educating\u201d the Uyghurs.   An estimated 1 million people are being detained in these internment camps for minor violations, without formal charges or access to legal representation.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Adrian Zenz, a leading expert on the issue, there may be as many as 1,200 camps \u2013 at least one for every township and county in Xinjiang. While authorities in Beijing call the camps \u201cvocational training centers,\u201d claiming that detainees are taught language, culture and vocational skills, reports of political indoctrination and physical torture suggest a different narrative. For example, reports have claimed inmates are forced to study Communist propaganda and chant slogans in praise of Xi Jinping in order to earn a meal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Repression of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region stems from longstanding ethnic tensions, mainly between the Han Chinese, the Uyghurs and the government. Factors such as the mass state-sponsored migration of Han Chinese, suppression of a unique Uyghur identity and violent handling of Uyghur separatism have resulted in a surge in violence in recent years. While the Chinese government argues that the recent crackdown is a necessary security measure, its arbitrary detention of the Uyghurs, reported use of torture and other human rights violations against detainees, and the transformation of Xinjiang into a surveillance state violate international law.  <\/span><\/p>\n

As a genocide and mass atrocity awareness and prevention organization, Jewish World Watch’s interest in the Uyghurs lies in the common indicators of genocide that are already demonstrating themselves: physical isolation (internment\/ ghettoization), persecution (torture, deprivation), and cultural cleansing.  All these are “phases” of genocide that have repeated again and again in genocides across culture, location, and time.<\/span><\/p>\n

China depicts its response \u2014 surveillance, arbitrary and unlawful detention, torture, indoctrination \u2014 as necessary to counter Islamic extremism, but the sheer scope of the policy, with over 1 million directly affected, the detention of many Uyghur cultural leaders, forced separation of families, restrictions on signifiers of cultural identity, and razing of mosques suggest that something more akin to a “cultural genocide<\/a>” is underway \u2014 essentially wiping the human slate clean of a people without actually killing them.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is an invariable link between the mass slaughter of human beings and attacks on cultural heritage, with destruction of culture often presaging bloodier tactics to come. In 1821 German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine wrote, \u201cWhere they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.\u201d Tellingly, his books were among those burned in 1933 on Berlin\u2019s Opernplatz, just several years before the \u201cfinal solution\u201d commenced.<\/p>\n

While cultural genocide is not a defined crime under international law, crimes against humanity are.  The offenses of arbitrary imprisonment and persecution both qualify as crimes against humanity “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”  Crimes against humanity are, of course, one of the main atrocity crimes which JWW fights to expose and eradicate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish World Watch has been calling for the unconditional release of the Uyghurs and the dismantling of the camp system since China\u2019s crackdown has come to international attention.  Since January, JWW has been pushing Congress to support the Uyghur Human Rights and Policy Act of 2019 (HR 649<\/a> and S 178<\/a>). The legislation calls for: <\/span><\/p>\n