China’s western province is Xinjiang and borders
Muslim Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Muslims living in Xinjiang are
called Uighurs. China took over East Turkestan in 1949 and quickly made it a
Province of the PRC and named it Xinjiang. Half the population of Xinjiang is
Muslim. We can assume that some of the Uighurs would push for independence from
China and generally not get along with non-Muslims.
The Chinese and the Russians have a lot of
experience with Muslims and their history reflects their quick suppression of
dissidents. See article below:
China accused of sending Muslim minority Uighurs to
re-education camps, by Ann Corcoran, 8/18/18.
The
story is bubbling around on the internet and will surely soon break out on
cable TV.
The Uighurs (sometimes spelled Uyghurs)
are people of Turkish origin.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-detaining-least-120000-muslim-uighurs-re-education-camps-1656603
Although,
not a refugee story yet, it could be in a few years down the
road. Once Trump is no longer our President, and if there has been no serious
reform of refugee law, the refugee industry will be busy finding more diversity
for your towns and cities.
One
thing that I find fascinating is that so far I haven’t seen the international
Islamic activists seriously attacking the Chinese for Islamophobia in the media
(what! no Chinese CAIR?) and definitely not on Chinese soil through terror
attacks.
From The Economist: China suggests its camps for Uighurs are just
vocational schools While the Wall Street Journal has a more provocative title for
its news yesterday:
China’s Uighur Camps
Swell as Beijing Widens the Dragnet. Here
is a bit of The
Economist story where the Chinese say they are
preventing their Muslim region of the country from becoming “China’s Syria.”
DURING
the past year campaigners, academics and journalists have been shedding light
on the detention for “re-education” of vast numbers of ethnic-Uighur Muslims in
China’s far-western province of Xinjiang.
On August 13th the topic was raised at the UN, when experts undertaking
an audit of China’s policies towards ethnic minorities said they had heard that
as many as 1m Uighurs are being locked away.
Hu
Lianhe, a Communist Party official flown in for the hearing, said allegations
that the party was sending Uighurs to indoctrination camps were “completely
untrue”. He explained that some petty criminals in Xinjiang were being assigned
to “vocational education” facilities for “rehabilitation and reintegration”,
but did not say how many.
The party appears to
think that obligatory periods of forced instruction, sometimes lasting weeks or
months, are a good way to tackle the Islamic extremism and secessionist
thinking that it says threaten Xinjiang’s stability.
People
who have worked or been detained in the centers say that inmates have had to
sing Communist Party songs. According to the Washington Post, a few have been made to consume pork
and alcohol. In some cases they have been subjected to physical abuse.
But
Mr Hu’s rebuttal nonetheless provided slightly more detail than has previously
been volunteered by officials. In May China’s foreign ministry told reporters
who had visited Xinjiang that it simply “had not heard” of the situation they
described.
In
an editorial published on August 13th, Global Times, a tabloid with
close links to the party, accused the West of trouble-stirring. It
insisted that the party’s strategies had successfully prevented Xinjiang from
turning into “China’s Syria”. More here.
Back
in 2008 and 2009, I posted several times about Uighurs mostly because some were
being held at Guantanamo Bay after having been captured on the battlefield in
Afghanistan, see here.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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