Category Archives: Eastern Turkestan

UCAnews: China to further clamp down on religions: rights group

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of President Xi Jinping is all set to impose more restrictions on religious freedom when the new measures take effect next month, warned a rights group.

The State Administration for Religious Affairs, the top CCP body overseeing religious affairs, announced the new measures on religious affairs on July 31 to be effective from September, ChinaAid reported on Aug. 10.

“The religious freedom of Chinese citizens, including those in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, will face further restrictions,” said the US-based group run by exiled Chinese Christians.

“All religious activities will be limited to official religious venues, and the display of religious symbols will be restricted indoors,” it added.

The new rules–Measures on the Administration of Religious Activity Venues– severely restrain the establishment and registration procedures for venues. But the measures also set forth management rules and stipulations for managing personnel.

The regulations specify the establishment of supervisors for religious activity sites and impose conditional limitations on internal management within these sites.

Though China’s Constitution allows freedom of religion or belief, the CCP has been accused of violating the rights of religious groups for decades, though it recognizes five organized religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism.

The state runs seven bodies to oversee the affairs of all recognized religions and impose restrictions on groups that are not registered and whose activities are not pre-approved by the state.

Since Xi became China’s president, religious groups have faced constant crackdowns under several repressive policies and regulations including sinicization of religions and the 2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs.

ChinaAid alleged that the CCP seeks to assert more control over religions by “suffocating” members of underground religious groups and placing official groups under more restrictions.

“This amounts to a complete ban on religious activities, whatever remains must align with the leadership and political propaganda of the CCP,” it warned.

Article 3 of the new measures requires religious activity venues should uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

Those at the activities must uphold the socialist system and adhere to Sinicization. Managing personnel will be expected to implement Xi Jinping Thoughts on Socialism

Article 16 of the Measures states that places of religious activity shall not be named after churches, sects, or persons.

Article 27 stipulates that members of the management organization of venues should possess the qualities of “loving the motherland and supporting the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system.”

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SMHRIC: Asia Freedom Institute webinar: “Cultural Genocide under Xi Jinping and the CCP”

SMHRIC
August 2, 2023
New York

The Chinese government’s policies towards ethnic and religious minorities have widely been characterized as genocide. Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have launched the second-generation ethnic policy (第二 代 民族 政策) through which the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other minority non-Chinese communities are experiencing unprecedented suppression and eventual eradication of their language, religious practices, traditions, and independent histories. The end goal is assimilation and sinicization. There are credible and numerous reports of forced labor, mass surveillance, re-education camps, mass collection of DNA, massive colonial boarding school systems, forced sterilizations, increasing restrictions on religious practices, etc. How does the Chinese government policies amount to cultural genocide? What has been the impact on the targeted communities? How can the impacted communities and the international community counter the CCP policies?

Safeguard Defenders: New report: China is threatening Uyghurs in Türkiye to spy on diaspora

The report, Targeted in Türkiye: China’s Transnational Repression Against Uyghurs, used interviews with Uyghurs living in Türkiye to show how Chinese police are using transnational networks involving local Neighbourhood Working Groups in China and mission staff and informants in Türkiye to monitor and manipulate Uyghurs living overseas.

Chinese police leverage intelligence gathered from these networks to coerce Uyghurs into spying for them, keeping quiet about China’s human rights abuses or producing pro-China propaganda. In every case in this study, police used open or veiled threats against family members back home as part of the transnational repression. The findings in this report are consistent with results from other human rights reports focused on Uyghurs living in other countries in addition to Türkiye.

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Noticing Chinese Interfering in US Affairs – Part 3

In continuing with the previous article from Mandiant, we are shown evidence indicating not only news, but in-person protest demonstrations are purported to have also been commissioned by agents of the Chinese Communist Party.

In addition to commissioning campaign support in the dissemination phases of HaiEnergy-attributed operations, we have evidence to suggest the campaign may have also financed at least two staged in-person protests in Washington, D.C. Both protests, which occurred around June and September 2022, were documented via video and subsequently used as source material to support campaign-promoted narratives published by assets and infrastructure leveraged by HaiEnergy.

The first protest we suspect to have been manufactured by the campaign was allegedly in response to the 2022 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit—an annual event held in Washington, D.C. aimed at bringing awareness to restrictions on religious freedom. The second protest appears to have been manufactured in response to a June 2022 decision by the U.S. Government to ban all goods produced in China’s Xinjiang region—a decision which came under the backdrop of continued allegations of human rights abuses against China’s ethnic-minority Uyghur population. In both videos, two small groups of protesters can be observed demonstrating in Washington, D.C., holding placards and chanting slogans intended to highlight U.S. domestic issues, such as racial discrimination and abortion, as well as criticize U.S. policy impacting the import of solar industry-specific components from Xinjiang—a key supplier of cheap critical components used by the solar panel manufacturing industry. As previously alluded to, HaiEnergy subsequently leveraged these videos to bolster campaign messaging.

The videos of these small protest demonstrations were then redistributed through their media network and made to look as though there was a groundswell of support against the ban on goods manufactured by slave labor in Eastern Turkestan (aka Xinjiang.)

For Freedom

Foreign Policy: How Beijing Forces Uyghurs to Pick Cotton

How Beijing Forces Uyghurs to Pick Cotton
Coercive labor is getting less visible, but more intense.

By Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington.

Beijing has repeatedly claimed that there is “no forced labor” in Xinjiang. But now, as the European Union debates a ban on products made with forced labor, the evidence has just gotten stronger.

My new research on Xinjiang’s cotton production—the first such research published in a peer-reviewed academic journal—shows that coercive labor transfers for seasonal agricultural work such as cotton picking have continued through at least 2022 and remain part of Xinjiang’s official Five-Year Plan for 2021-25. Economic incentives for this practice persist despite partial mechanization: State media reports from 2022 confirm that the premium-grade long staple cotton grown in southern Xinjiang still cannot be harvested by machines.

Labor transfers subject Uyghurs to state-assigned work placements. They often separate them from their families and communities, subjecting them to intensive surveillance, long work hours, and mandatory political indoctrination and Chinese language classes in the evenings.

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RFA: UN human rights chief: China has arbitrarily detained Uyghurs, separated families

The U.N.’s new human right chief said his agency has documented China’s arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and the separation of children from their families in comments during a global update on human rights on Wednesday in Geneva.

Volker Türk, who took over last September, said his office has opened up channels of communication with various actors to follow up on human rights issues in China, including the protection of minorities such as Uyghurs, Tibetans and other groups.

“In the Xinjiang region, my office has documented grave concerns, notably large-scale arbitrary detentions and ongoing family separations and has made important recommendations that require concrete follow-up,” he said.

Türk also said his office has concerns about severe restrictions of civic space, including the arbitrary detention of human rights defenders and lawyers and the impact of the National Security Law in Hong Kong.

The United Nations and Western governments have remained steadfast in their condemnation of China over its harsh policies affecting Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hongkongers, though Beijing has angrily denied accusations of abuses and continued maintaining an iron grip on them.

Türk’s comments come nearly three weeks after U.N. Commission on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or CESCR, grilled 40 Chinese delegates about the human rights situations in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, the far-western autonomous region in China where more than 11 million of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people live.

When asked for explanations about reports of the destruction of Uyghur cultural and religious sites and the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in “re-education” camps, the Chinese delegates responded with denials and assurances that rights were protected.

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RFA: Blinken remarks on mass DNA collection in Tibet, Xinjiang spark backlash from China

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed concern over the collection of DNA from Tibetans and Uyghurs by Chinese authorities, sparking a vehement reply from Beijing.

Speaking at a Freedom House awards event in Washington on Tuesday, Blinken said access to human genomic data opens up more human rights concerns because advances in biotechnology have enabled genomic surveillance based on DNA, potentially facilitating rights abuses. He is the senior-most U.S. official to raise the issue.

“We’ve seen some of those, for example, committed by the People’s Republic of China against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang,” he said. “We’re also concerned by reports of the spread of mass DNA collection to Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance over the Tibetan population.”

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RFA: Most Uyghurs banned from praying on Islamic holiday, even in their homes

A policeman gestures as Uyghur Muslims arrive at the Id Kah Mosque for prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar, northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, June 26, 2017.

Chinese authorities banned most Uyghurs praying in mosques – and even in their homes – during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in many parts of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, residents and police said.

People age 60 and older were allowed to pray in a local mosque under heavy police surveillance during Eid, which fell on April 20-21 this year, they sources said.

Since 2017, China has restricted or banned ethnic customs and religious rituals among the mostly Muslim Uyghurs in an effort to stamp out “religious extremism.”

During this year’s Eid, the most important Muslim holiday, authorities in Xinjiang patrolled city streets and searched houses to prevent people from secretly praying inside their homes, the sources said.

An administrative staffer from Yarkowruk town in Akesu Prefecture said one mosque there was open for Eid prayers.

“Our police officers went to the mosque to watch the people,” the employee said. “I don’t know if people needed permission to go to the mosque because I did not go there.”

Likewise, only one mosque was open for Eid prayers in Bulung town, Bay county, an officer at the local police station said, though only residents over 60 years old were allowed to pray if they wanted.

The government issued a notice that people younger than 60 could not pray on the Eid holiday, he added.

Only a dozen Uyghur elders in Bulung attended Eid prayers in a mosque as three police officers and several auxiliary police staffers observed and wrote down the Uyghurs’ names, said the officer from the town’s police station.

“The mosque was open yesterday, and we went there to surveil people,” the police officer said, adding that he told residents under 60 not to go to the mosque.

One local resident, who like others in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told Radio Free Asia that authorities destroyed almost all the mosques in Nilka and Kunes counties, so that even if the government allowed people to pray during Eid, they could not go to a mosque to do so.

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RFA: Japanese woman of Uyghur origin wins seat in Japan’s parliament

Arfiya Eri’s election gives hope to second-generation Uyghurs living in exile, advocates say

A Japanese woman of Uyghur ethnicity and who was educated in the United States has been elected a member of the Japanese parliament — the first person of Uyghur heritage to run as a major party candidate in an election there.

Arfiya Eri, a 34-year-old member of the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, was elected on Sunday to the lower house of the Japanese Diet to represent Chiba prefecture’s 5th district. She captured the seat previously held by Kentaro Sonoura, a former LDP lawmaker who resigned last December over a political funds scandal.

The World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, applauded the election of Eri, also known as Alfiya Hidetoshi, as the first Uyghur woman to be elected to any parliament, and the first Uyghur-Japanese politician to hold a seat in the Diet, or Japanese parliament.

Eri beat six other candidates from Chiba to win the contentious election, receiving about 5,000 votes more than the candidate who came in second, said Sawut Memet, a standing committee member of the Japanese Uyghur Association, based in Tokyo.

“This historic victory is significant for the Uyghur Japanese community, as well as the global Uyghur diaspora community,” the organization said in a statement issued Monday. “The WUC firmly believes that she will serve the interests of the Japanese citizens, and the country, at the same time raising the Uyghur issue in the Japanese Parliament and other high-level forums.”

Eri’s election comes as Uyghur rights groups have called on the international community to take concrete action against China for committing severe rights abuses against the mostly Muslim group in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Japan’s government in recent years has expressed concern about human rights conditions in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has detained Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in “re-education” camps, monitored them with intrusive digital surveillance technologies, subjected them to forced labor, and worse.

Japan’s Lower House adopted a resolution in February 2022, expressing concern over the human rights situation in China, including the plight of the Uyghurs, and called on Beijing to take measures to address the situation.

That September, WUC President Dolkun Isa asked the Japanese parliament to declare that China’s abuse of the Uyghurs amounted to a genocide, following similar determinations of genocide and crimes against humanity by the U.S. State Department and several Western legislatures.

Her election has “tremendous positive implications for Uyghurs,” showing that they are not “terrorists” as China has made them out to be to justify its repressive policies in Xinjiang, Memet told RFA.

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All Static and Noise: Official Trailer

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