The Uighurs under Beijing's thumb
New York (AsiaNews/HRW) Chinese authorities are engaged in a violent campaign of religious and political repression against ethnic Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province, this according to a 114-page report released today by Human Rights Watch.
The document entitled Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang relies on previously undisclosed Communist Party and government documents, as well as local regulations, official newspaper accounts, and interviews conducted in the province.
It unveils for the first time the complex system of laws, regulations, and policies enforced in Xinjiang that deny Uighurs religious freedom, and by extension freedom of association, assembly, and expression.
It shows how state authorities politically examine all imams on a regular basis requiring them to undergo 'self-criticism' sessions; impose surveillance on mosques; purge schools of religious teachers and students; screen literature and poetry for political allusions; ban religious holidays, studying religious texts, or showing one's religion through personal appearance.
The authorities also vet who can be a cleric, where religious gatherings may be held, and what may be said.
Openly expressing one's religious identity in public places, government buildings and school is also strictly forbidden.
One official document goes so far as to say that "parents and legal guardians may not allow minors to participate in religious activities."
Human Rights Watch condemns how the government equates religious freedom and any expression of dissatisfaction with Beijing's policies with 'separatism'.
People practicing their religion in ways that the Party and government deem unacceptable are arrested, tortured, and at times executed.
The harshest punishments are reserved for those accused of so-called separatist activity, which officials increasingly term 'terrorism'.
What is more, half the detainees in re-education camps were arrested and detained without due process and "the worldwide campaign against terrorism has given Beijing the perfect excuse to crack down harder than ever in Xinjiang," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Other Chinese enjoy a growing freedom to worship, but the Uighurs, like the Tibetans, find that their religion is being used as a tool of control."
As Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan himself has stressed, the "major task" facing the authorities in Xinjiang is to "manage religion and guide it in being subordinate to the central task of economic construction, the unification of the motherland, and the objective of national unity."
The Uighurs, a Turkish-speaking minority of some eight million people, whose traditional homeland lies in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China, have become increasingly fearful for their cultural survival and traditional way of life in the face of an intensive internal migration drive that saw more than 1.2 million ethnic Chinese settlers arrive over the past decade and whose presence is radically changing local social structures.
Most Uighurs desire greater autonomy than is currently allowed; however, in more recent years, a small but growing minority is demanding independence from China.
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04/10/2005
