Daily Times

Historically, Uyghurs who are ethnically of Turkic descent have been living in and around the northwestern region of the modern-day China for over two millennia, during which time, the region has gone through five phases in the following time periods: from 300 BC to 630, the per-imperial phase; from 630 to 840, the imperial phase, from 840 to 1200, the Idiqut phase; from 1209 to1600, the Mongol phase; and from the demise of the Silk Road in 1600 to the present, the modern phase.

From the pre-imperial through Mongol phases, Uyghurs started out as a small nomadic tribe from the Altai Mountains facing and fighting powerful adversaries along the way during their early nomadic lifestyle. The tribe competed with rival powers in Central Asia, which included other Altaic tribes, and lived in Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan empires—local kingdoms and khanates. After the Uyghur Khaganate, which they had established in Mongolia in 744, collapsed in 840, the ancient Uyghurs moved from Mongolia and resettled in the Tarim Basin region and assimilated the Indo-European population of diverse ethnicities. Many Uyghurs also worked as civil servants in various administrations of the Mongol Empire that comprised Mongol-ruling khanates. Incidentally, it is worth noting that the Mongols in the region who were ethnically Turko-Mongol introduced their Turkish-Mongolian culture and converted to Islam while also adopting certain aspects of the regional and/or local languages and cultures. The Muslim Mongols were (and are) called Moghuls in the regional language—Persian and/or Turkish. The Moghuls (also spelled as Moguls in the West, especially in the U.S.A.) spoke old Turkish as well as Persian, which were two dominant languages in the region.

In the middle of the 10th century. the Turks living in the region converted to Islam when they established the Kara-Khanid khanate. So, most Uyghurs who, as mentioned above, are ethnically Turkic people also converted to Islam in order to further assimilate the Turks (who were ethnically relatable to them), adopted the regional dominant language/scripts (Persian scripts) while retaining certain ancient Uyghur words in entirety or modified forms, and became accultured by following various aspects of the regional/local cultural and religious ways of life. The Tarim Basin region where majority of Muslim Uyghurs were concentrated was called East Turkistan by various Chinese dynasties which ruled the region in different time periods. East Turkistan was renamed Xinjiang by the Chinese Qing dynasty soon after its invasion in 1759 by the dynasty.

At present, Xinjiang is an autonomous and largest province of communist China. The province is in the northwest of the country and home to not only Muslim Uyghurs, but also to other Muslim or non-Muslim ethnic groups including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, the Han, Tibetans, Hui, Tajiks, Mongols, Russians, and Xibe (or Sibe). The Xinjiang province has more than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for the ethnic minorities, and borders Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The historical Silk Road that was once the most well-known route in the ancient past ran through the Xinjiang province from the east to its northwestern border.

Since its founding in 1949, communist China has been run by a single, strict, authoritarian party, the Communist Party of China. Even though the Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution says that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief.”, China essentially forbids practice of religions by effectively banning discrimination based on religion and also forbids governmental institutions, public organizations, or individuals from compelling the citizens to believe in—or not believe in—any particular religion. In other words, it is illegal to proselytize or promote a religion in China, which may impact those religions that are inherently intended to proselytize or introduce them to other people. Such religions, for examples, are Christianity and Islam that have been competitively bent on global domination for centuries.

The autonomous prefecture of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang has been under a strict control by China which itself, throughout China, has had notoriously one of worst human rights records in the world for many decades, including, but not limited to, suppression of freedom of expression, curtailment or control of flow of information, and persecution of certain ethnic or religious minorities in China.

After 9/11, China introduced even more strict controls via what it called “Strike Hard Campaign” for the autonomous prefecture in order to crackdown on Muslim Uyghurs who were widely suspected by the Chinese government of being Islamic extremists or potential Islamic terrorists, and who, possibly, may victimize non-Muslim Chinese and/or try to retaliate against the Chinese government’s strict controls.

The extremely strict controls initially involved banning of burqas/veils for Muslim women, beards (long ones) for Muslim men, or anything deemed Islamically “extremist” attire that is interpreted to “whip up religious fanaticism” or “disseminate religious extremist ideologies” (e.g., violent verses of the Quran); banning Islam from education and punishing teachers for failure to stop or report any activities that has “hints of religion” (i.e., Islam) in schools; prohibiting Muslim Uyghur children from learning about their religion, even at home—essentially prohibiting the recitation of the Quran; banning Muslim Uyghur students from dropping out of high school for religious reasons; disallowing Muslim Uyghurs to go to Mecca unless they join state-organized pilgrimages; banning the use of a “halal” label on products other than “meat, dairy and edible oils”; prohibiting any printed or electronic information that “undermines national unity, social stability, economic development, or scientific and technological progress” or that “affects religious harmony”; and banning drafts and circulation of Islamic laws and regulations. In other words, China, contravening its own Constitution, has essentially banned Islam or its practice.

But for the last several years, the Chinese government has, via the Strike Hard Campaign, increasingly intensified the strict controls in Xinjiang while saying that it must eliminate terrorist threats by “eradicating ideological viruses” of some “incorrect” Islamic beliefs and non-Chinese identities. It is achieving this goal by committing human rights violations and using repressive tactics on a very large scale that is unprecedented, including, but not limited to, mobilizing a million officials in Xinjiang to spy on Muslim Uyghurs through intrusive “homestay” programs, encouraging Uyghur neighbors to spy on each other, affixing QR codes on Uyghur homes to monitor residents’ conducts; collecting biometric data of Uyghurs, even that of Uyghur children; making inquiries via questionnaires to determine Uyghurs’ everyday behaviors and recording the results in computer data programs, including questions regarding smoking, drinking alcohol, religious piousness, along with “storing lots of food in one’s home,” or owning a fitness equipment, and other questions that can help indicate signs of Islamic “extremism.”.

Moreover, as a part of the Strike Hard Campaign, the Chinese government has prepared a list of 26 “sensitive” countries (mainly Islamic countries) to tightly control Muslim Uyghurs’ travels abroad. Pakistan is among the 26 countries. The other countries on the list include: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The Chinese officials use this list along with the questionnaires for a special police interrogation to target any Muslim Uyghur that has a family member living abroad in any one of the countries on the list. An interrogation often leads to ill-treatment or indefinite detention.

Additionally, as a part of the Strike Hard Campaign, the Chinese government has since 2017 established and operated (and still operates) in Xinjiang internment camps (akin to concentration camps), which the Chinese government officially calls “Vocational Education and Training Centers”. But it has been credibly reported that these camps are actually for the purpose of indoctrination and/or political education, and that as of now, estimated 1.5 to 3 million Muslim Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic/ethnic Muslims, even Christians as well as some foreign citizens from the neighboring Islamic countries have been detained (essentially imprisoned) under “brutal conditions” including “beatings” by the local authorities without a trial or without levying any charges against the detainees. The detainees are constantly told by the Chinese officials that they (Muslim Uyghurs) are “not Turk but Chinese”, during their indoctrination. The detainees are required to learn Mandarin and sing songs in praise of the Chinese Communist Party to make them “politically qualified.” Once in every month or so, the camp guards would force the detainees to watch an act of burning of the Islamic prayer rugs/mats and prayer beads or strung-beads (tasbih), and Islamic books that had been confiscated from Muslim Uyghur homes. It must be noted that Islamic books often contain Quranic verses.

Muslim Uyghurs who are outside the internment camps are made to attend indoctrination meetings and Mandarin classes. They are required to apply to the police for permission and go through numerous checkpoints just to go to a next town. The authorities in Xinjiang have recalled passports of Muslim Uyghurs and prohibited them from communicating with relatives or friends/acquaintances living abroad.

Various credible investigative reports indicate that the construction of additional internment camps has continued, notwithstanding claims by the Chinese government that the function of the camps is nearing its end; that in the last three years, based on satellite imagery documenting hundreds of sacred sites and statistical modelling, the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have demolished around 16,000 mosques out of which an estimated 8,500 mosques have been fully destroyed; that the Chinese government is using methods, such as IUDs, abortion, sterilization, to reduce the birth rates among Muslim Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities as a part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population; and that China is committing “something close to” a genocide by its ill-treatment of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Yet, another credible investigative report indicates that various goods produced in Xinjiang are made with the forced labor of the detained Muslim Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities.

A case in point, a news article has reported that in 2017, Chinese officials seized a Pakistani father’s Uyghur son of age 19, sent his two daughters of ages 7 and 12 to an orphanage in Kashgar (which is in Xinjiang) without his consent, and detained his Uyghur wife also in Kashgar. The father and son had been in Pakistan for three weeks when they received a phone call from back home in Xinjiang that his Uyghur wife had been detained by the Chinese authority. He and his son raced to the border where the Chinese police were waiting. They arrested his Uyghur son, saying that he would be questioned on “what he had done in Pakistan” (as Pakistan is on the list of 26 sensitive countries). “Don’t separate us,” His father begged the police, “Question him in front of me. I’ll be silent and he will speak truth.” “You’ll have your son back in a week,” the police told him that day in 2017. His son whom he would never see for two years was sent to one of the internment camps, indoctrinated and ill-treated there by the Chinese authorities during the two years. His Uyghur wife was initially sent to another internment camp and then later transferred to a prison. This Pakistani father had to go through the painful separation and trauma just because his wife, son and daughters are Uyghurs. Many Pakistani-Uyghurs are now in fear.

The current leader, high-ranking officeholders, and top political leaders of Pakistan, which shares its history, heritage, ethnicity, culture, religion, and Turkish/Persian based language and scripts with Muslim Uyghurs and which, in its northern area, borders Xinjiang, have been very vocal critics of mistreatment of Muslims globally, especially those Muslims living in the Indian-held Kashmir. But these Pakistani officeholders/politicians seem to have no qualms about the severe human rights abuses and persecution of Muslim Uyghurs by China in Xinjiang that have been (and are still) going on for so many years. When first questioned about the persecution at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), the Pakistani leader deflected the question by first claiming to not “know much about” the persecution or scale thereof. But when pressured, the leader acknowledged it by saying that Pakistan’s special relationship with China played a part in response to the Uyghur crisis, while adding that Pakistan was obligated to China because “they came to help us when we were at rock bottom.”.  As a matter of fact, the Pakistani leader had repeatedly denied knowledge of persecution of Uyghurs by China by telling the Financial Times, Al Jazeera, and the Turkish news channel TRT World in interviews that he “doesn’t know much” about the persecution of Muslim Uyghurs by China while also saying to Al Jazeera,  “For Pakistan, China has been the best friend.”

However, recently, it has been reported in the news media that Pakistani officials delivered to the Chinese mission in Islamabad an internal assessment report that probably due to an internal religious or political pressure, had been prepared to determine the extent of the public sentiment with regards to the persecution of Muslim Uyghurs by China. The report notes that the ill-treatment of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang has impacted religious opinion in Pakistan. The reports also provides several suggestions to address the persecution issue. After reviewing the report, the Chinese mission responded by asking Pakistani authorities to manage any negative sentiments domestically when it comes to action by China against Muslim Uyghurs. The Chinese mission also said that Pakistan’s concerns about Muslim Uyghurs were ‘taking the shape of emotions’, which implies that the show of Pakistan’s Islamically-influenced emotions about Muslim Uyghurs may jeopardize the mutual interest and the friendly bilateral relationship of both countries, and that Pakistan should keep its suggestions to itself. In other words, China rejected the Pakistan’s report and told Pakistan to back off; and in turn, Pakistan seems to have complied on the issue of persecution of Muslim Uyghurs.

Strangely, it is not only Pakistan that caved in to China on the issue of persecution of Muslim Uyghurs, but also, in spite of reports about the human rights abuses of Muslim Uyghurs, many Muslim-majority countries, probably due to a fear of provoking China’s wrath, have stayed silent on this issue. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that represents 57 Islamic or Muslim-majority countries mentioned “disturbing reports” of China’s action against Muslim Uyghurs in various tweets. But later, the OIC backtracked by issuing a report which mentioned that it “commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China.”. This OIC statement that seems to highlight the opposite of what China is doing to its Muslim citizens is disheartening and obviously incorrect. Further, it shows that the countries of the OIC have submitted, instead of standing up, to China on this issue

The OIC countries, which include Pakistan, whose leaders always talk vociferously or fume and froth and scream and make all diplomatic efforts against any mistreatment or injustice (real or perceived) done to minority Muslims in other non-Muslim countries, such as India (for Muslim Kashmiris) or Israel (for Muslim Palestinians), do not seem to have an enough moral courage and/or a matching political or financial strength to sway China to stop the ill-treatment of its Muslim citizens. As such, these leaders seem to have willfully turned their bind eyes to the persecution of Muslim Uyghurs that has been (and is still) going on in a plain sight for so many years; and hence, they sadly seem to see no evil.

On the other hand, regardless of religion/ethnicity. non-Muslim countries in the West are standing up to China against its human rights abuses of Muslim Uyghurs and intend to take severe economic actions against China. For an example, In America, despite concerns about any potential effects on global commerce, the House of Representatives voted 406-3 to declare that any goods produced in the Xinjiang province of China are presumptively made with the forced labor of detained Muslim Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities, and therefore banned from being imported to the Unites States.