St Andrews Uyghur Initiative

09/12/2021

'Sir Geoffrey Nice, a prominent British barrister who chaired the tribunal hearings, said its panel was satisfied China had carried out "a deliberate, systematic and concerted policy" to bring about "long-term reduction of Uyghur and other ethnic minority populations". He added that the panel believed senior officials including the Chinese president Xi Jinping bore "primary responsibility" for the abuses against Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.

The tribunal's panel was made up of lawyers and academics. Its findings have no legal force and are not binding on ministers, but its organisers said at the outset they intended to add to the body of evidence around the allegations against China and reach an independent conclusion on the question of genocide.'

A London-based unofficial tribunal says China is deliberately preventing births among Uyghurs.

26/11/2021

'The Biden administration has upheld its predecessor’s determination that China’s mass incarceration and forced sterilisation of its Muslim Uyghur population constitutes genocide. It has also been critical of the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and repressive measures in Tibet.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that Biden raised human rights abuses in his summit with Xi.

“President Biden is always going to be Joe Biden. He is going to be direct and straightforward. And he’s not going to sand down the edges of direct messages on hard issues,” Sullivan told a Brookings Institution video conference assessing the summit on Tuesday.'

Biden administration may not send official delegation to Beijing 2022, in protest at human rights abuses

30/08/2021

'Both the Taliban and the former government of Afghanistan have aided in China’s transnational repression efforts to silence Uyghur dissidents, a joint report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs revealed this month.

“At the behest of the Chinese authorities, Islamabad [Pakistan] and Kabul are engaged in the harassment, detention, and deportation of vulnerable Uyghurs,” UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat said. “Some of the targeted Uyghurs have been tortured and executed in China, while others have experienced the breakup of their families and heavy-handed surveillance of their communities. China’s economic largesse can buy all sorts of complicity in violence against Uyghurs.”'

Uyghur expat communities in Muslim-majority Afghanistan have faced repression from both the Taliban and the legitimate government.

23/08/2021

"Beijing has economic interests in the country, with a particular eye on its vast mineral wealth, but China's main interest is that conflict doesn't spill beyond Afghanistan's borders.

Central to those worries are how to curb regional instability and eliminate any potential for Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups, especially Uyghur militants in the country. An early test for the new era of the Taliban's relationship with China will be if the militants ban the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) -- a Uyghur group that Beijing blames for unrest in its western Xinjiang Province -- from operating on Afghan soil.

While many analysts dispute the severity of the threat posed by Uyghur groups to China, it is seen as a major threat by Beijing -- with counterterrorism being central to the Chinese Communist Party's justification for its crackdown in Xinjiang, where it is believed to have interned more than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities."

Beijing is preparing for a reshaped geopolitical map and a new era of security risks in South and Central Asia after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

16/08/2021

"The government has long encouraged labour-intensive industries to set up in Xinjiang. Now it is trying much harder. In its latest five-year plan for the region, finalised in June, it stressed the importance of basic manufacturing. It sees factories as the best source of steady, well-paid jobs.

Human-rights groups sense ulterior motives. Analysis of satellite imagery points to factories being built alongside many of the region’s expanding prisons. Testimonies from inmates suggest that forced labour is common. Many of those released from re-education camps seem to be on indefinite probation, compelled to work wherever they are assigned.

The government denies such allegations. It claims to have created jobs last year for about 2.7m “surplus labourers” in Xinjiang, many in textile factories. At present, textiles account for only about 2% of Xinjiang’s industrial output. That should soon start to rise."

Prison camps and forced labour are unlikely to produce economic dynamism | China

09/08/2021

Will open-source intelligence change the game?

"In the face of vehement denials from the Kremlin, Bellingcat, an investigative group, meticulously demonstrated Russia’s role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight mh17 over Ukraine in 2014, using little more than a handful of photographs, satellite images and elementary geometry. It went on to identify the Russian agents who attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, in England in 2018. amateur analysts and journalists used osint to piece together the full extent of Uyghur internment camps in Xinjiang. In recent weeks researchers poring over satellite imagery have spotted China constructing hundreds of nuclear-missile silos in the desert."

It is a welcome threat to malefactors and governments with something to hide | Leaders

24/07/2021

'The poverty in Xinjiang, China is the highest of the Chinese provinces at approximately 6%. However, certain regions within Xinjiang face more poverty than others. Yutian County, for example, has a poverty rate of around 25%. Even so, the region has made great strides in poverty alleviation in recent years, lifting 2.3 million out of poverty. Xinjiang’s resource-rich areas have caught the attention of Han Chinese, driving migration and economic growth. Additionally, the government has promoted various industries, employment transfers and citizen relocation. This has the result of further driving down poverty rates.

Unfortunately, many Uyghurs are excluded from the benefits of reduced poverty. Employment discrimination prevents Uyghurs from getting jobs in these growing markets. As a result, a disproportionate amount of Han Chinese receive better jobs. This furthers the economic disparity between the two groups. On top of this, the rising number of Han Chinese in the region has made the native Uyghurs feel distant from one another and worry their culture is disappearing.'

20/07/2021

'Are the policies counterproductive? How has the migration of Han Chinese to the region changed it? Won’t economic development erase the tensions in the region? Is Are Americans and other Westerners concerned about Xinjiang only because of the negative light it shines on China? These questions and more were discussed.'

A symposium featuring a distinguished panel of specialists to discuss Uyghur beliefs and Chinese government policies in the region.

16/07/2021

How should we draw the line between counterterrorism and terrorism? It's not easy to answer this question - and China is not the first to abuse this ambiguity.

'All this points to sinicization, not security, driving China’s repressive policies in Xinjiang. Rather than routing out terrorists Beijing is attempting to drive out ideas and symbols that they deem insufficiently Chinese.

Regardless of this evidence, a growing number of countries appear to have bought Beijing’s line or, at the very least, are prepared to regurgitate it. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan does not even try to pretend otherwise. “What they [Chinese officials] say about the programs in Xinjiang, we accept it,” he remarked in a recent interview.'

Beijing has defended its actions against Muslims by saying they are necessary to w**d out terrorism. That claim cannot go unchallenged.

14/07/2021

Fascinating debate!
'Is the rise of terrorism and violence justifiably traced to the teachings of Islam, or is this call to war a twisted interpretation of the true Muslim faith? Most of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims are moderates who see Islamic terrorism as a violation of their sacred texts. Is it wrong to let a radical minority represent authentic Islam? Has fear blinded us to its lessons of tolerance and peace?'

Is the rise of terrorism and violence justifiably traced to the teachings of Islam, or is this call to war a twisted interpretation of the true Muslim faith? Is it wrong to let a radical minority represent authentic Islam? Has fear blinded us to its lessons of tolerance and peace?

11/07/2021

‘Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a “dystopian hellscape” for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.

The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.

Testimonies from former detainees included in a new report launched on Thursday allege the use of “tiger chairs” – steel chairs with leg irons and handcuffs that restrain the body in painful positions – on detainees during police interrogations.

The report also claims that beatings, sleep deprivation and overcrowding are commonplace in police stations. Uyghur Muslims, often arrested for what appeared to be lawful conduct, also reported being hooded and shackled during interrogation and transfer.’

Widespread internment, torture and rights abuses have been claimed by former detainees as Beijing continues a policy of denial

10/07/2021

OPEN TO PUBLIC University of Newcastle conference - 'The Crisis: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Justice’ (1-3 September 2021). Registration required for in-person/virtual auditing.