A Chinese people that happen to be Muslims.

A people that few Americans know anything about. A people that most Americans could care less about mainly because they are Chinese and Muslim.

Despite an official ideology that recognized them as equal citizens of the communist state, Uighurs have always had an uncomfortable relationship with the authorities in Beijing. In 1933, amid the turbulence of China’s civil wars, Uighur leaders in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar declared a short-lived independent Republic of East Turkestan. But Xinjiang was wholly subsumed into the new state forged by China’s victorious Communists after 1949, with Beijing steadily tightening its grip on the oil rich territory. Its official designation as an “autonomous region” belies rigid controls from the central government over Xinjiang, and a policy of settling hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese there that has left the Uighurs comprising a little less than half of the region’s roughly 20 million people.

The Uighurs have deep roots in the region, descending from the ancient Sogdian traders once observed by Marco Polo. Unlike many of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia, the Uighurs are an urban people whose identity crystallized in the oasis towns of the Silk Road. A walk through the bazaars of old Uighur centers such as Kashgar, Khotan or Yarkhand reveals the physical legacy of a people rooted along the first trans-contintental trade route: an astonishing array of hazel and even blue eyes, with blonde or brown or black hair — typically tucked beneath headscarves or the customary Uighur felt cap.

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1909416,00.html

The Uighurs and the Chinese government have had a bit of a problem with each other……

It is believed that the Chinese government has detained up to a million Uighurs over the past few years in what the state defines as “re-education camps”. The government is now also accused of a programme of forced sterilisation against Uighur women.

China initially denied the existence of the camps, before claiming they were a necessary measure against separatist violence in Xinjiang. It also denies carrying out forced sterilisations.

In July 2020, the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused China of “gross and egregious” human rights abuses against the Uighurs. The reports of forced sterilisation and wider persecution of the ethnic group were “reminiscent of something not seen for a long time”, he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037

To keep it as simple as possible…..there are 5 things that you should know about the Uighurs…..

… there has been mounting evidence of alleged atrocities at the camps, including torture, rape and forced sterilization. President Donald Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 into law on June 17 that aims to punish China for its treatment of the minority group. Now, momentum is growing for the United Nations to take a stand and condemn the alleged atrocities against the ethnic Uighurs.

Here’s what you need to know about the alleged atrocities at the camps.

https://justthenews.com/world/asia/5-things-know-about-concentration-camps-chinas-uighur-muslims

The Uighurs have been mistreated for decades or longer and yet the leadership of Islam has very little to say about the treatment of fellow Muslims…..

China has stripped away the religious justifications to reveal what was once half-hidden: unadorned and unstoppable power. In many countries, criticising China is the new blasphemy. Nowhere can you see the power more nakedly displayed than in Muslim-majority regimes. Once, they tried to murder blasphemous novelists and screamed about their desire to defend the prophet from the smallest insult. Today, they bend their knees and bite their tongues as China engages in unspeakable atrocities against the largely Muslim Uighur population of western China.

One of the great crimes of the 21st century is being committed in front of our eyes. We see it, yet we don’t register it. The Chinese Communist party is reverting to type, and reviving the totalitarian fear of the Mao era. To bring down numbers of the largely Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang, the China scholar Adrian Zenz reports, the Communists are forcing women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices. If they resist, the state sends them to join the one million Uighur people and other Muslim minorities detained in what the state defines as “re-education” camps. A BBC investigation found that China was separating children from their families so they grew up without understanding Islam.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/04/why-do-muslim-states-stay-silent-over-chinas-uighur-brutality

These people deserve the attention to bring them some relief from their sad treatment at the hands of the Chinese government.

Another Muslim minority that is suffering from governmental abuse…..he Rohingyas will be feature in a later post.

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