Muslims in China: Oppressive Persecution or Necessary 'Re-education'?

On Friday, September 13, the U.S. Secretary of State criticized the Islamic Republic for its 'hypocrisy' and its 'complete silence' regarding the issues faced by the Uyghur Muslim minority in China. He pointed out that 'China is one of Iran's largest oil customers' and criticized the Supreme Leader for not responding to the detention and imprisonment of a large number of Muslims in China. The situation of Muslims in Xinjiang has prompted increasing reactions from Western countries, including the United States, Canada, France, and Germany. In the latest developments, 15 foreign ambassadors in China coordinated and unprecedentedly expressed their concerns about this situation in a letter. The Xinjiang region, previously known as East Turkestan, is located in northwest China, centered around the city of Urumqi, and is larger than the territory of Iran. This region contains ancient cities like Hotan and Kashgar, which were once home to Iranian ethnic groups like the Scythians. Today, about half of the 22 million population of Xinjiang speaks Uyghur Turkish, which is written in Arabic script with Persian orthography. Reports of abuse and mistreatment by the Chinese government against the Uyghur minority date back a decade, but various sources indicate that these abuses have intensified over the past year. The situation is such that regional experts and various media outlets, such as the British newspaper The Guardian, report that effectively 12 million Muslims are being held hostage by the Chinese government in their own homes. According to these reports, holding Ramadan ceremonies, praying, fasting, growing beards, and wearing hijabs have been banned for the new generation of Uyghurs, and the use of Islamic names for children is also prohibited. Gulchehra Khawja, an exiled Uyghur journalist, explained the situation in Xinjiang for CNN: Experts write that the Chinese Communist Party has established a program called the 'social credit system' which categorizes Muslims in Xinjiang into three groups: 'safe, normal, and unsafe' based on criteria such as age, degree of faith, religious behavior, foreign contacts, and experience with the outside world. Those categorized as 'unsafe' face immediate detention and transfer to camps. According to some analytical reports, at least 44 camps are operational in this region for holding detainees, with estimates of detainees ranging from 800,000 to 2 million. Uyghur activists claim that in these camps, detainees are forced to renounce Islam, accept atheism, and pledge loyalty to the Chinese state and government. The Associated Press previously reported that former detainees from re-education camps stated that in these closed facilities, which are under constant police surveillance, Muslims are asked to criticize themselves and their families and officially express gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party. Documentaries secretly produced by some Western journalists about the situation in Xinjiang show that vehicles with loudspeakers from the Communist Party are present daily in the main streets of cities in this region, continuously broadcasting government propaganda loudly in markets and streets. Xinjiang is marked on the map of China and is the location of 're-education' camps. Some of these documentaries even show that government loudspeakers are installed on poles in agricultural fields, forcing Uyghur farmers to listen to these advertisements continuously while they work. Many individuals are also required to attend Communist Party ideological classes several days a week after work, spending hours in these classes until 7 or 8 PM, and they are tested on the content of these classes. Following recent unrest and street protests by Uyghurs, the government has established a police station every 200 meters in cities, especially in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and many Uyghurs are forced to show their identification cards at these checkpoints while moving through the streets. In July 2009, unrest and protests in Xinjiang resulted in the deaths of nearly 200 Muslims in the region. At that time, Manouchehr Mottaki, the then Foreign Minister, only contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry after criticism from two religious authorities. Chinese officials claim that they are facing the influence of extremist Islamism in Xinjiang but deny allegations regarding detentions and camps, labeling them as 'media rumors.' After initially denying the existence of the camps, Chinese officials later stated that 'some guilty individuals' have been sent to certain centers for 'vocational training' to prevent their radicalization. According to a new law recently announced, the Chinese government has legally declared these detention centers as 're-education centers.' Furthermore, multiple reports have emerged about the migration of millions of Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China, to Xinjiang, many of whom undergo 'spy' training and monitoring of the Muslim minority by the Communist Party before arriving in this region. Another aspect of the 'suppression and assimilation' of Muslims in Xinjiang is the destruction of ancient sites in the region, which has been part of local protests against this action. Reports indicate that Chinese officials have demolished large parts of the old fabric of the two-thousand-year-old city of Kashgar with bulldozers. This old fabric was previously considered one of the best examples of Islamic architecture in all of Central Asia. The Chinese news agency Xinhua claims that the Chinese government respects the religious culture of Xinjiang.