In the Press | Chinese Human Rights Defenders

Internment camps for Muslim Uighurs make their lives ‘colourful’, Chinese governor claims

December 4, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by The Telegraph on October 16, 2018 China’s detention camps are “training” centres that have made lives more “colourful” for Muslim minorities by saving them from extremist behaviour, a senior official said on Tuesday, in a robust defence of the policy amid growing international criticism. Shohrat Zakir, governor of Xinjiang, (read more…)

China’s Middle East policy runs into problems

December 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by The Arab Weekly on October 14, 2018 China’s rise to the rank of major world power has mostly been on its own terms. That is true considering this rise from an economic standpoint but it has also been true in the country’s foreign policy. In recent years, (read more…)

Beaten, terrified and disappeared: China cracks down on faulty vaccine outcry

December 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by The Guardian on October 12, 2018 There are fears for the safety of a woman campaigning about China’s defective vaccines, with activists saying she has been missing for more than 40 days. Authorities have been clamping down on families demanding redress over hundreds of thousands of doses issued (read more…)

China rewrote a law to force Xinjiang Muslims into “psychological correction” camps

December 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by Quartz on October 10, 2018 Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims in China’s far west have been forced into propaganda camps for patriotic “re-education,” according to rights groups. Now the practice has the backing of local law, thanks to an Oct. 9 revision. According to the new Article (read more…)

China’s Human Rights Abuses Against Uighurs in Xinjiang

December 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by Lawfare on October 9, 2018 During a 2013 trip to Kazakhstan, Xi Jinping announced the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI)—China’s ambitious plan to enhance its “friendship” with the rest of the world through expanded investments in infrastructure and trade. Xinjiang, a resource-rich autonomous region in Northwest China (read more…)

DOLMA: Reconsider genocidal countries

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by Yale Daily News on September 25, 2018 As Yalies sipped cocktails in Beijing and snapped photos of the Great Wall this summer, the Uyghurs — a Muslim ethnic minority — faced genocidal policies within the same country. Uyghurs primarily live in the region of Xinjiang, an autonomous region (read more…)

China Detains, ‘Disappears’ Parents of Faulty Vaccine Victims

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by RFA on September 20, 2018 Authorities in China are holding at least one vaccine campaigner and have ‘disappeared’ another following an attempted protest on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square earlier this month, RFA has learned. Dong Junhua, the parent of a child affected by substandard vaccines from Dancheng county in (read more…)

New Era for Religion in China as Party Tightens Controls

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by VOA on September 20, 2018 BEIJING — The recent closure of one of Beijing’s largest independent churches, and a crackdown on congregations elsewhere in China, are part of a broader effort to bring religion more fully under the ruling Communist Party’s control, say Christian leaders, scholars and (read more…)

Human Rights Watch accuses China of forcing Turkic Muslims into ‘internment camps’

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by KentWired on September 19, 2018 China has been accused of detaining Turkic Muslims in what Human Rights Watch has referred to as “political education camps” due to their practice of Islam. The Chinese government, however, claims these facilities are “vocational education and employment training centers” for “criminals (read more…)

The Guardian view on Xinjiang: China’s secret camps are at last in the spotlight

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by The Guardian on September 14, 2018 As increasing evidence emerges of the arbitrary detention of Muslim minorities on a shocking scale in the north-western region, the new UN rights chief and others are speaking out It is unthinkable. Yet week by week, the evidence mounts that in north-western (read more…)

Beijing’s dispute against UN panel on Xinjiang may ring hollow

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by Asia Times on September 4, 2018 China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, hit back after reports of more than a million Uyghurs being held in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang were deemed “credible” by a United Nations human-rights panel last month. In a (read more…)

‘An information black hole’: Exiled Muslim Uighurs fear for loved ones back home as China tightens its grip on Xinjiang

October 3, 2018 Comments Off

Originally published by HKFP on September 2, 2018 One year ago on his birthday, Murat Uyghur dialed the number to his parents’ phone in east Xinjiang from his home in Finland. No one answered, and he became increasingly worried. After several attempts to contact them, his father eventually picked up the (read more…)