In this article, we will go through a brief history of Uyghurs. After that, we will discuss the support they receive internationally along with Muslim countries. Then we will discuss what they are going through in recent times.
Who are Uyghurs? Where have they come from?
Uyghurs are a type of Sunni Muslims. They speak “Uyghur” a Turkic language.
They are natives of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the Western part of China.
It is said that Uyghurs adopted Isalm in 934 AD during the Khaganate Empire.
It was considered to be an advanced place at that time as Arts, Science and Culture flourished in Islamic institutions there. Many significant books were written at that time. Such as the Uyghur scholar Yusuf Has Hajip’s book “Kutatku Bilig” (The Knowledge for Happiness) and Mahmud Kashgari’s Divan-i Lugat-it Turk (a dictionary of Turk language).
Brief Timeline of Uyghurs
- 934 – Adopted Islam and established their own Civilization
- 1876 – Invaded by Manchu Empire – Quing Dynasty.
- 1984 – After a 8years of war, they lost and were annexed into Quing Territory and renamed to Xinjiang (which means “New Frontier”, “New Borderland” or “New Territory”).
- 1911 – Chinese Nationalists overthrew the Manchu empire. So Xinjiang came under the rule of Chinese Government
- 1933 – First success in Independence from China and became First East Turkestan Republic.
- 1944 – Second Success in Independence from China became the Second East Turkestan Republic
- 1949 – Under Chinese Rule.
Population of Uyghur Muslims
The Uyghurs are natives of Xinjiang ( formerly known as East Turkistan ) which is currently under China’s rule so they have the highest population in that region.
It is believed that the total population around the globe of Uyghurs is 13.5 million.
China is home to 12,123,000 Uyghurs.
Uyghurs also reside in other countries such as Kazakhastan ( 200,000+ ), Tiwan (80,000), Turkey (60,000) , Uzbekistan (55,000), Kyrgyzstan (48,000), Saudi Arabia ( 50,000 ), Jordan (30,000), Pakistan ( ~ 1000 Families ) , etc
Why are they discriminated (China vs Uyghur Muslims )
China has always been afraid of losing its identity so it believes in erasing other cultures and imposing the mainland Chinese culture in the occupied territories. It starts by injecting its language Mandarin in schools of invaded territories. Then it starts giving out free education of Chinese culture in the region. Later it gets intense and starts imposing Chinese systems on everything such as Radios, TVs, News Papers, etc. The same pattern has already been seen in Tibet, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. Such a pattern of Chinese has been observed recently in HongKong. They started their efforts 20 years back and today in 2020 they finally captured it.
So the Uyghurs were no exception. The autonomous region was invaded by the Chinese and was discriminated against because of different cultures. Since 2009, China has been giving the excuse of terrorism and have been sending Uyghurs to concentration camps.
This has intensified a lot since 2017. The Uyghurs have been struggling to make themselves heard to the world for years but the FEAR POWER of china has suppressed their voices and MONEY POWER has forced other countries to look the other way. The atrocities on Uyghurs can be compared to atrocities on Jews under Hitler’s rule.
This is known as the Sinicization policy of the Chinese Government in Xinjiang. Chinese Government have enforced many punishable offenses in Xinjiang such as
1. Growing long beard
2. Wearing a veil ( Burkha ) in public.
3. Not watching state-run TV
4. Not listening state-run broadcasts on radio
5. Giving children religious names like “Muhammad”
Along with such rules, many mosques were destroyed and many concentration camps were built under the impression Vocational Training Centers.
It is said that 1-1.5 million Uyghur Muslims have been detained in these more than 1000 (2019 figure) concentration camps and they don’t have anything good to say about vocational training.
Most stories that come out have atrocities such as cutting off their fingers or removing their body parts like liver or kidney. People who have been to the camps often refer to it as hell and say that they are much worse than prisons in most countries.
Islamic Countries Defend China for their treatment of Uyghur Muslims
Many Uyghurs have tried to make their voices heard but as I said, China has MONEY POWER which is the strongest power in the world today. In 2019, 22 states ( Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK ) openly condemned China’s oppression over Uyghur Muslims.
To the surprise of the world, 37 countries came to China’s defense. Amongst them were 14 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar and Algeria. They wrote a letter to the UN Human Rights council praising China’s “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights”.
Moreover, in a recent discovery, a secret Uyghur extradition deal between Turkey and China is discovered.
Wrapping Up
The atrocities of China over Muslims and the bad luck of Uyghurs of not having their own (religion) brothers ( Islamic Countries ) on their side is disturbing. Millions of lives are badly affected and MONEY compels the Islamic countries to bow down to China. The atrocities faced by Uyghurs are comparable to German atrocities on Jews.
Uyghurs are helpless and Chinese are hunting them down not only from Xinjiang and other parts of China but also from other countries like Turkey and Pakistan.
Most of these countries have received huge amounts of Chinese investments and are not willing to speak against their MONEY GUY. So the Chinese Xi-Jinping continues his REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENTS IN HUMAN RIGHTS as he was doing in the past and the helpless Uyghurs continue to suffer.
