Writer: Ayesha

Editor: Adithi.S

"As candles are lit on the twenty-seventh of January in remembrance of victims of the Holocaust - perhaps the most brutal reminder of the horrors mankind is capable of inflicting - history repeats itself in an agonizingly slow slaughter in the powerhouse of the east."

Hemmed by rugged mountains with the Taklamakan desert at its heart and oasis cities in the south, Xinjiang is an autonomous region in the far northwest of China.

Xinjiang originally consisted of two distinct regions; Dzungaria to the north of the Tianshan Mountains and the Tarim Basin in the south, mainly inhabited by the Uighurs. After undergoing a period of political turmoil, the region was conquered by the Qing dynasty in the 1750s and was later inherited by the Republic Of China which ascended to power in 1912. Power was then transferred to the People’s Republic Of China.

The region underwent Islamization in 1000 AD and with a majority of the population speaking Turkic languages and practicing a culture that closely resembles Central Asia rather than the Chinese interior, the area has been subjected to ethnic and religious conflicts throughout the period it has been governed by Chinese regimes.

The First East Turkestan Republic was formed following a rebellion in Kashgar against the Republic Of China which was still in the process of conquering Kashgar. After the Republic was annexed following the victories of the Chinese at the Battle of Kashgar (1933 and 1934), the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin invaded Xinjiang and aided a local rebellion which led to the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic. The People’s Liberation Army later annexed Xinjiang from both, the Republic Of China and the Second East Turkestan Republic.

These rebellions - along with support from the Soviet Union - instilled a sense of separatism in the region that would later inspire extremists who sought to liberate Xinjiang, which is still referred to as East Turkestan by the locals, from the Chinese regime.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Xinjiang saw an influx of the Han Chinese - a state-orchestrated event. Between 1949 and 2008, the proportion of Han in Xinjiang rose from 7% to 40%. This is the largest demographic change in the history of the People’s Republic Of China.

A 2005 report by the Human Rights Watch collected through the scattered information from official sources suggested retaliation against the construction of mosques by the Xinjiang Party. This was one of the first Islamophobic notions expressed by the State.

Racism became prevalent in the labour market and ethnic conflicts followed. Throughout the period of instability, the Chinese government imposed harsh restrictions and tightened security in Xinjiang which further stoked the protests.

Urumqi witnessed riots in 2009 where 200 Han Chinese were killed, six Uighurs tried to hijack a plane in June of 2012, 27 died in Shanshan after the police open-fired on what the State described as “A mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings'' in 2013. 31 were killed in 2014 when cars crashed through the Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it “a violent terrorist attack”. Most of the attacks were inspired and promoted by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, described by the US State Dept. as “the most militant of the ethnic Uighur separatist groups'', that claims to want to establish an independent East Turkestan for the Uighur population in China.

Following the slew of attacks from Uighur extremists in 2014, the government imposed a ban on fasting during Ramadan, furthering the State’s belief that Islam was the root cause of the ongoing violence.

Uighur commercial and cultural activities were gradually curtailed by the State. Amnesty International published a report in 2013 stating that the authorities criminalised “What they labelled as ‘illegal religious’ and ‘separatist activities’ and halted ‘peaceful expressions of cultural identity’”.

In 2016, Chen Quanguo transferred to Xinjiang from Tibet and assumed the position of Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Xinjiang.

He enforced severe restrictions and initiated the use of high-tech methods such as facial recognition whilst strengthening the preexisting traditional surveillance methods.

The entire Muslim population of Xinjiang along with ethnic minorities such as the Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek have been assumed to be extremist and promoters of separatism.

Speeches to the atheist State addressing the ‘issue’ of Muslims in Xinjiang have included the following statements - “It is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts.” “Freedom is only possible when this ‘virus’ in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health.”

These statements were also used to justify the forced enrollment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in ‘re-education camps.

The people were monitored for exhibitions of ‘problematic behavior’ which included giving up pork and alcohol, wanting to embark on a religious pilgrimage (to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina) and even attending a funeral. Mosques were closely observed and the forces were ordered to keep track of how many times a day the people prayed, either in their homes or at the mosques.

Under Chen Quanguo’s orders, individuals with a “heavy religious environment at home” and those who exhibited ‘problematic behavior’ were charged with separatism and sent to the re-education camps. Quanguo’s orders included scrutiny of three generations of each detainee's family, neighbors, and friends - many of whom were later sent to the camps.

The true nature of these ‘re-education camps’ remains widely unknown apart from the accounts of former detainees, human rights groups, and satellite images.

Thursday Ziawudun, Gulzira Auelkhan, Qelbinur Sedik, and Sayragul Sauytbay are amongst the women who managed to flee China after being released from the internment camp.

Ziawudun, who is a Uighur, and her Kazakh husband returned to Xinjiang in 2016 after spending five years in bordering Kazakhstan. A few months later, she was rounded up with other Uighurs and Kazakhs and detained. She recalls that her first stay in detention was relatively easy and was released after she developed stomach ulcers. Her husband was given his passport and went back to Kazakhstan for work but Ziawudun was kept back. The authorities claimed that she needed “more education”.

Brought back to the same facility where she had previously been detained, she noticed that it had been significantly developed and buses were constantly offloading new detainees. The women, even an elderly one whom Ziawudun later befriended, were treated harshly.

The women’s headscarves were pulled off by the police and they were rebuked for wearing modest long dresses - one of a list of religious expressions which would later become arrestable offences for the Uighur.

"They stripped everything off the elderly lady, leaving her with just her underwear. She was so embarrassed that she tried to cover herself with her arms. I cried so much watching the way they treated her. Her tears fell like rain." Ziawudun said in an interview with the BBC.

Within the first two months, the women had their hair cut short and had to watch propaganda programmes. The detainees also underwent unclear medical tests, took pills, and were injected with an unknown vaccine that caused numbness and nausea once a fortnight.

The women were subjected to worse than spending hours singing patriotic songs, being forced to memorise books and renounce their faith, watching programs about President Xi Jinping and surviving despite food deprivation.

In the nine months Ziawudun spent in the concentration camp, she witnessed women being taken from their cells by masked Chinese men.

The following statement was published in an article by the BBC - “Ziawudun believed that if she revealed the extent of sexual abuse she had experienced and seen, and was returned to Xinjiang, she would be punished more harshly than before. And she was ashamed, she said.”

Foreign journalists’ access to the region of Xinjiang is scarce due to the regime’s severe restrictions, and since the State controls all media, it is impossible to verify the detainees’ accounts. However, most - including Ziawudun’s - travel documents and records have provided sufficient information to back their claims. Her description of the camp in Xinyuan county matches satellite imagery and her description of life within the camp corresponds with the accounts of other detainees.

Gulzira Auelkhan was detained for eighteen months and was forced to strip women naked and cuff them, leave them alone in the room with Chinese men and clean the room afterwards. She revealed that the Chinese men would pay money to have their pick of the most attractive inmate.

Auelkhan added that this was a system of organised rape designed to destroy their spirits.

Qelbinur Sedik, an Uzbek teacher, was amongst the many teachers drafted in to “re-educate” the detainees. This process is meant to strip the Uighurs and other minorities of their very culture and heritage, and indoctrinate them into inland Chinese culture.

Sedik cautiously questioned a policewoman regarding the rumour of rapes who answered with the fact that the rape had become a culture. She said that there were four kinds of electric shocks - the chair, the glove, the helmet, and an anal stick.

Sayragul Sauytbay was another Chinese-Kazakh teacher forced to work in the camps. She was subjected to the traumatic gang rape of a young woman - by the police - who was later brought before the other detainees and forced to make a false confession.

Sauytbay describes the camp as cramped and unhygienic, lacking basic necessities. The detainees had their heads shaved and limbs shackled. They were subjected to psychological and physical torture.

She also mentions a ‘black room’ - an anomaly amongst the cells, each fitted with five functional cameras, and hallways whose every inch was covered by surveillance.

The black room is used for purposes such as torture, electrocute, beat, pluck out nails and gag detainees as they are electrocuted, and gang rape.

Women were forcibly sterilised or fitted with IUDs. Food was withheld from the detainees for faults such as failing to memorise a passage from a book. Different colours were given to infractors of varying severity, and they were punished by beating.

According to human rights activists and analysts, the policies against Uighurs have been designed by President Xi Jinping.

The government claims to have “slowed down” the internment camps, but satellite footage shows that the camps have been extended to Tibet. Denying allegations and rejecting international criticism, the Party continued to describe the camps as “job-training centres that use mild methods to fight Islamic extremism.”

President Xi Jinping has coined the following terms for the concentration camps in his speeches - which are displayed across screens in Kashgar - “Struggle against terrorism” “Using organs of dictatorship” “Absolutely no mercy”. It is believed that the American troops fighting “Islamic extremism” in Afghanistan have inspired the leadership to follow the example in an inhumane manner.

The State has launched a parallel effort targeting children of detainees. Over half a million children have been sent to State-run boarding schools and are taught Mandarin in an attempt to sinocize the population. As detailed in the State’s policy, one to two such schools will be set up for the youth of the minority populations in Xinjiang’s 800 plus townships.

In an internal party communications report obtained by The New York Times, Xi Jinping was recorded saying, “The weapons of the people’s democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering.”

His promises seem to be proven true with a 60% decline in birth rates in the Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar. Disregarding the 1.8 million belonging to the Turkic minorities who have been incarcerated in what the Foreign Policy calls “the largest incarceration of an ethnoreligious minority since the Holocaust”, approximately 34% of women between the ages of 18 and 49 have been sterilised. This rate is higher than the total number of sterilisations China has performed in 20 years combined. The birth rate in Xinjiang has halved.

The Chinese Embassy published a Tweet sharing a report by China Daily - a state-run media outlet - and captioned it, “Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uyghur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent.” This Tweet was removed by Twitter.

In 2019, Bellingcat reported, “There is a systematic repression and imprisonment of the Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang and destruction of cultural and religiously significant Islamic buildings may be a further part of this ongoing repression.”

In December of 2020, the International Criminal Court declined to investigate China on the basis of having no jurisdiction over the country.

The Guardian’s analysis reports that over a third of mosques and other religious sites in China suffered from significant cultural damage.

In 2020, Kashgar’s last functioning mosque, Id Kah, was converted to a tourist attraction.