Finally, some clarity about the fate of many Uyghurs

Finally, there is some real clarity about the fate of many Uyghurs incarcerated in the Chinese education camps. Read our earlier article on this subject https://xcodexfoundation.com/articles/the-repression-of-the-uyghurs-in-china/

The Uyghurs have been all over the news in the past week. This since the published hacked documents and thousands of photos from police servers in Xinjiang. And that is a good thing! As we wrote in our earlier article, the human rights of this population group are largely violated by the Chinese government.

Uyghurs who are incarcerated in camps have been recognized by their families.

Abdurahman Hasan was approached by the BBC earlier this year. They suspected they had found his wife Tunsagul Nurmemet amongst the leaked photos earlier this year. Hasan is still in shock to actually recognize his wife in this leaked photo. He says he had been told she was dead.

However, the photo is from 2018, she was alive then, whether she still is, is uncertain. Hasan’s wife had received a 16-year sentence for unclear reasons in an education camp. Leaked police reports state that she received this sentence in prison for inciting public disorder. Only nobody knows what she has done, and especially her husband is completely in the dark. His mother was also detained. An elderly, 70-year-old woman was allegedly chained to an iron chair and tortured. His mother has since returned home, but according to Hasan, she refuses to wear a headscarf out of fear.

The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority in the west of China, have been extremely oppressed without any explanation for years. This is also evident from the collection of photos and documents that show the miserable conditions under which this group is locked up.

Bachelet urges for visit since 2018

UN Human Rights Commissioner Bachelet has been pressing for a visit to the Uyghurs since 2018. This visit has also been repeatedly postponed because of the Corona outbreak. The documents and photos from the Xinjiang Police Files were made public on the first day of her visit to China.

The Uyghurs, however, are not particularly happy with how this visit went. They see it as a farce in which Bachelet was not able to experience the real misery in which the Uyghurs live. Bachelet was not able to hear that almost every family or relatives misses loved ones, because they are locked up for no reason at all. She has not been able to feel the suffering that these families have to deal with on a daily basis. She has not been able to see the horror that the detainees have to go through on a daily basis, often for many years.

Bachelet gave as reason for her planned visit the many human rights violations, that would take place during the mass detention of the Uyghurs, in their re-education camps. According to escaped ex-prisoners, the regime in China is guilty of, amongst other things, the forced sterilization, torture and rape of prisoners. Bachelet is working on an investigative report to get a better picture of the oppression of the Uyghurs. However, she stayed in the region for six days under the urgent supervision of the Chinese state. This is blamed on the fact that she did not enforce any freedom to visit places independently. Bachelet mainly consulted behind closed doors, which is totally in line with Chinese state propaganda.

China itself is very pleased with Bachelet’s visit

China is of course very pleased with Bachelet’s visit. In a detailed reaction, Ma Zhaoxu the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs says that good talks took place. Especially in the spirit of mutual respect, in which Bachelet is said to have praised the progress on human rights policy. This statement is a push into the battered and oppressed heart of the Uyghurs.

Adrian Zenz, who leaked new documents from the Chinese government last week, states that Bachelet has not even been near the real camps. She has not been able to see or experience anything at all, which is very disappointing. Especially since the hopes of the Uyghurs had been pinned on this visit for a long time. The behavior during Bachelet’s press conference about her visit was also a major irritation for the human rights organizations. The very few questions she answered means that families and loved ones of victims have still no idea in what conditions they are really living. But above all, why no organization or country is really tackling China about the injustice that is happening to this population.

In the education centers, we make our citizens aware of the dangers of extremism

It is clear from the hacked documents that the re-education camps are set up as high-security prisons. They are complexes enclosed with bars, barbed wire and guarded towers. The documents show that the guards have permission to kill anyone who wants to escape from these camps.

In this way, the Chinese government wants to eradicate three evils, namely terrorism, separatism and extremism. For this purpose, the government uses these hundreds of prisons cum re-education camps. If the government expresses strong criticism of this, it is systematically dismissed. Cold-hearted Chinese officials say that in these voluntary education centers, citizens are made aware of the dangers of extremism. Think of it as extra training, they say. What really happens is that they want to eradicate the Uyghur culture in the detainee. Everything that reminds them of this must be wiped from their consciousness.

This is also the reason why many children are separated from their parents at a very young age and live in closed institutions. This is to limit the influence of parents in the child so that without Uyghur culture, the child is no longer a danger. In the camps, the Uyghurs and also the children are forced to renounce everything that their culture implies. There is constant manipulation and repression so that the detainee will accept Chinese culture. For example, you would get extra points if you speak Mandarin well and accept it as your mother tongue. You score the highest points if you see President Xi Jinping as your God and renounce everything else.

The Xinjiang Files give a good picture of the heavily guarded camps

The material from the Xinjiang Police Files gives a good picture of the camps. One camp in Konasheher, for instance, houses 3,722 detainees. The guards consist of 54 police officers and 280 assistance guards, who are armed with machine guns and assault rifles. However, the watchtowers clearly show guards with sniper rifles.

The leaked manuals reveal that the officers and guards follow instructions appropriate to a high-security prison. Transfers involve the use of blindfolds, chains and handcuffs. Photographs show the constant inhuman oppression of the detainees. But also daily degrading treatments they have to endure.

China sees everything about the Uyghurs as a threat

The Chinese government considers everything about the Uyghurs a threat. There is a totally unfounded suggestion that the Uyghurs have a connection with al-Qaeda. That is why their beards, headscarves, veils and their Koran are seen as absolutely suspicious. Families with more than three children are even stranger. However, the Uyghurs want their own state and language in order to express their own culture and origin.

The mass imprisonment of the Uyghurs has been labelled as genocide by some governments.

The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and the United States refer to the mass imprisonment of the Uyghurs as genocide. According to the government of China, this is a big lie and is only meant to stop the rise of China. It causes a lot of tension between China and these governments. For example, China wanted to use Bachelet’s visit to convince her of the misinformation spread by these governments.

The Uyghurs in the Netherlands

It is estimated that in the beginning of 2021 approximately, 2100 Uyghur refugees were living in the Netherlands. They have the status of asylum seekers. However, some Uyghurs appear to be working as informants for the Chinese government. This is because the intimidation by the Chinese government continues quietly in our country. By systematically threatening with all kinds of punishments and disappearances of family members in China if they do not cooperate, they give in. Here in our country, too, there are hardly any protections, nobody who really takes action. No government seems to be doing anything by, for example, boycotting products made in the labor camps.

JUST THINK!

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