They [Beijing] cannot afford to have people who have no future. It is not just about terrorism. They are really anti-poverty. By Ted Regencia. Published On 8 Jul Who are the Uighurs and why has Beijing been cracking down on them in recent years?
Former detainees say they were forced to eat pork in re-education camps and detention centres. More from News. Is a new international convention to protect refugees needed? Exit polls suggest tight race in Bulgaria parliamentary election. Most Read. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that estimated 2 million Uyghur and Muslim minorities were forced into mass internment camps so far. The UN Committee estimation was based numerous reports that it said were credible.
Gulags, what else! A recent report in the British daily The Sun paints even a darker picture. The daily, quoting a leaked document from Beijing says mass internment camps existed even in and till date, eight million Uyghur and other Muslim minorities could have been forced through the camps or gulags.
Gulag network was a series of forced labour camp in the Soviet Union from s to mids and imprisoned millions of people. US House of Representatives recently passed a legislation that proposes to ban imports from Xinjiang over forced labour camps. That is another aspect of the mass detention camps being run by China. In July this year, opposing forced labour in Xinjiang, more than human rights groups from 36 countries gave a call to the international clothing brands to stop garment import from Xinjiang in next 12 months.
In March this year, ASPI published a report, Uyghurs for sale that said 80, Uyghur workers were sent to industrial units in different provinces in China. They ended up in low factory jobs. The report identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies using the Xinjiang forced labour. That looks exactly the Chinese motive.
China is targeting mass internment camps and Uyghur dominating reasons with stringent birth control measures. But now after relaxing the one-child policy nationally and encouraging the Han Chinese people, mass migrated to Xinjiang, to have more than one child, China is forcing the reproductive age Uyghur women to go through stringent birth control measures including drug use and sterilisations.
An investigative research study by Adrian Zenz, a Chinese scholar, who has published his with the Jamestown Foundation, gives us some eye-opening figures. According to his research work, 1. Some Uyghur counties saw more deaths than birth. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, while the use of intrauterine device IUD to prevent pregnancy fell sharply in China, it witnessed a massive increase in Xinjiang.
Zenz says China has stopped publishing the latest updates on birth rates from Uyghur dominated regions. Add to it another level of discrimination: An independent tribunal in London, China Tribunal, working to stop organ transplant abuse by China, says China has been involved in organ harvesting from dissidents and people interned in detention camps.
Xinjiang lies in the north-west of China and is the country's largest region. Like Tibet, it is autonomous, meaning - in theory - it has some powers of self-governance.
But in practice, both regions are subjected to major restrictions by the central government. Xinjiang is a mostly desert region and produces about a fifth of the world's cotton. Human rights groups have voiced concerns that much of that cotton export is picked by forced labour, and in some Western brands removed Xinjiang cotton from their supply chains, leading to a backlash against the brands from Chinese celebrities and netizens.
In December , research seen by the BBC showed that up to half a million people were being forced to pick cotton in Xinjiang. There is evidence that new factories have been built within the grounds of the re-education camps.
The region is also rich in oil and natural gas and because of its proximity to Central Asia and Europe is seen by Beijing as an important trade link. In the early 20th Century, the Uyghurs briefly declared independence for the region but it was brought under the complete control of China's new Communist government in Several countries, including the US, Canada and the Netherlands, have accused China of committing genocide - defined by international convention as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
The declarations follow reports that, as well as interning Uyghurs in camps, China has been forcibly mass sterilising Uyghur women to suppress the population, separating children from their families, and attempting to break the cultural traditions of the group.
The UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, has said the treatment of Uyghurs amounts to "appalling violations of the most basic human rights", and the UK parliament declared in April that China was committing a genocide in Xinjiang.
A UN human rights committee in said it had credible reports that China was holding up to a million people in "counter-extremism centres" in Xinjiang. Earlier, leaked documents known as the China Cables made clear that the camps were intended to be run as high security prisons, with strict discipline and punishments. People who have managed to escape the camps have reported physical, mental and sexual torture.
Women have spoken of mass rape and sexual abuse. Family members were monitored for participating in religious ceremonies like funerals or weddings. Additional research by Zenz and the Associated Press in June bolstered this finding, showing that Chinese officials were systematically trying to stop Uighur women from having children under the threat of internment if they violated the rules. According to the report:. The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show.
Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang. The research backs up anecdotal reports from women detained in the camps, who say they were forced to undergo examinations and abortions. In December , Gulzira Mogdyn, a year-old ethnic Kazakh and Chinese citizen, was detained in Xinjiang and put under house arrest. She was 10 weeks pregnant; a month later, doctors terminated her pregnancy against her will.
That is why it is general reeducation, not limited to a few people. The Washington Post published an account from Kayrat Samarkand, who was detained in one of the camps for three months:.
The year-old stayed in a dormitory with 14 other men. Beyond the detention camps, there is now growing evidence that Uighurs are being forced to work in Chinese factories. Given the ubiquity of Chinese manufacturing, that almost certainly means that the exploitation of Uighurs is embedded within global supply chains.
The forced labor is happening both within Xinjiang and in other parts of China, according to recent reports. A March report from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China also found Uighur forced labor taking place within internment camps.
Some Uighurs were taken directly from concentration camps to the factories, though the conditions mirrored those they faced in detention, according to that same study. Uighurs were under constant surveillance, forced to undergo Mandarin language instruction and other political teachings in their free time. Most critically, they cannot leave. In July , the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported a story of a Uighur woman , year-old Dilnur, who was sent to an internment camp along with her husband.
The revelations raise serious questions for the global supply chain and anyone who buys goods that at one point passed through China. The ASPI found that at least 27 suspected factories are using laborers from Xinjiang, which potentially have connections to 83 major global brands.
The Xinjiang region, specifically, is a major cotton hub for China , meaning Xinjiang cotton might end up in the final products of many clothing lines. Other companies, like Apple, have said they found no evidence of forced labor but are monitoring their sources. Another recent investigation in the New York Times found that forced Uighur labor is being used to make personal protective equipment, specifically those disposable surgical face masks that are ubiquitous in the time of Covid In July, more than 72 Uighur rights group and civil society groups worldwide launched a campaign to end forced Uighur labor , demanding companies stop sourcing cotton, yarn, textiles, and finished products from Xinjiang, and for companies to cut ties with suppliers implicated in forced labor schemes.
Zubayra Shamseden, the Chinese outreach coordinator with the Uyghur Human Rights Project, told me in July that Uighurs have faced discrimination for years in education and employment. The recent headlines, including those about birth control and forced sterilization, have helped change that. But, she said, anyone who really tried to see what was happening in Xinjiang could see if they looked.
Activists say governments and international institutions need to do more to pressure China. Uighurs in the diaspora are pushing for the International Criminal Court to investigate China for genocide and other atrocities.
Some US lawmakers have been pushing for the US to get tougher on China on the Uighur issue, and the State Department has advocated for the Uighurs as part of its religious freedom initiatives. And the Trump administration is finally beginning to take more forceful steps to punish China for its human rights abuses. President Donald Trump himself had been pretty quiet on the topic until recently, and it seems his desire to negotiate a trade deal with China was a big reason why.
At least nine of the companies had ties to forced Uighur labor , including some named in the ASPI report that were connected to major clothing brands.
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