Hyderabad: For China's 11 million Uighurs (pronounced wee-gers) life is one of travails. Mired in tension, fear, depression - the Turkick speaking Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province remain captive in the hands of Chinese state ideology. They are indoctrinated in Chinese re-education centres, asked to forsake their Islamic beliefs and practices and subjugated.
The Uighurs' original homeland was the heartland of Silk Road. The areas in Central Asia were conquered by China in 1949 and renamed Xinjiang province which means the new frontier in Chinese. Contrary to popular belief Uighurs are not descendants of the Turks.
Things in Xinjiang were relatively peaceful. But 9/11 changed the scene. Many Uighur people openly started to talk about freedom from China and instigated people to die for that, says China. So the Chinese state machinery swung into action. Since then China "destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials," says New York Times quoting Chinese documents.
China also says that it has arrested almost 13,000 'terrorists' in Xinjiang since 2014. Harsh measures are meted out to some while most are put in re-education centres which the Chinese authorities call vocational training centers. Contrary to China's claims of only 13,000 people taken to centres, a UN panel says that more than one million Uighurs and other Muslims are held in the detention centres. Reliable sources say that Chinese authorities force the detained Uighurs to renounce their religion and culture and brace the Chinese communist philosophy.
However, China rejects any claim that it is maltreating the Uighur detainees. It says it takes “preventive measure to deter people from terrorism and enable them to fit into society.” But a 2018 Amnesty report says that 'open or even private displays of religious and cultural affiliation, including growing a beard, wearing a veil or headscarf, regular prayer, fasting or avoidance of alcohol, or possessing books or articles about Islam or Uighur culture can be considered "extremist" under the regulation'.
A scholar of Turkey-based Society of the Muslim Scholars of East Turkistan (SMSET) complains that, "The Chinese government is waging a cultural war against our people by trying to force us to abandon our Muslim faith and our heritage to become atheists and communists like the majority Chinese society," reports Alzajeera.
In fact, the Chinese accusations that Uighurs are engaged in anti-China activities fall flat in the face of the facts that Uighurs have no means or organizational strength to wage jihadist movements inside Xinjiang.
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Interestingly, Muslim countries are silent on the oppression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Most notably, the silence of Pakistan is most intriguing. While Pakistan routinely accuses India of oppressing Kashmiris it remains mum when it comes to China. However, the reason can be easily found out. It is Chinese money, the Chinese projects in Pakistan that has effectively silenced Pakistan. Many Muslim countries are also in the Chinese infrastructural project esp. the One Belt One road project .
It would be interesting to see how long the Muslim world maintains considered silence over 11 million Uighur Muslims' plight in China.
