Xinjiang residents under tight control

[Randy W]

Population: Birth Rate: Xinjiang

China Population: Birth Rate: By Region

CEIC. Census and Economic Information Center.

 

[Randy W]

Use the law to tackle terrorism in Xinjiang, China’s security chief says

• Chen Wenqing urges authorities to ‘normalise’ counterterrorism efforts and abide by ‘scientific’ legislation in combating extremism
• Chen made his first trip to the region since taking up his new role in October

from the SCMP

China introduced its first counterterrorism law in 2015, issuing specific directives for implementing the legislation in Xinjiang the following year. photo: Shutterstock
 

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That was the message Communist Party security chief Chen Wenqing delivered during a five-day trip to the region that ended on Sunday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

“[Authorities should] resolutely combat terrorist and extremist crimes in accordance with the law,” Chen said on his first visit to the region since becoming head of the party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission late last year.

“[We should] strengthen the construction of supporting laws and regulations, and promote the resolution of enforcement and judicial issues at the institutional level,” he said, stressing the need for a “scientific” approach to legislative tools.

“[We should promote] strict law enforcement and skilfully use legal tools to maintain stability and combat crime.

“[We should] advance impartial justice, enabling people of all ethnicities to have faith in the rule of law.”

He also said counterterrorism efforts should be “normalised” and authorities should guide people of all ethnicities to consciously build up “national consciousness, civic consciousness, and legal consciousness”.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

U.S. bans imports from 3 more Chinese companies over Uyghur forced labor

from the UPI

The United States on Tuesday banned imports from three Chinese companies on accusations they use the forced labor of Uyghur minority Muslims. Photo by Wu Hong/EPA-EFE

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While China denies the accusations, stating the Uyghurs are being held in re-education facilities in order to stamp out extremism, the United States maintains they are being arbitrarily imprisoned and subjected to forced sterilization, torture and labor as well as draconian restrictions on freedom of religion, expression and movement.

According to a report produced Friday by the Congressional Research Service, Uyghurs are pressured by the Chinese government to work in textile, apparel, agricultural, consumer, electronics and other labor-intensive industries, with those who refuse punished with detention and other measures.

Effective Wednesday, goods produced by the three companies Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile and Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation Textile will be restricted from entering the United States.

"We do not tolerate companies that use forced labor, that abuse the human rights of individuals in order to make a profit," Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

 

 

[Randy W]

China sentences Uyghur academic to life in prison in Xinjiang

A man rides a scooter past a government billboard urging people to “forge an understanding of the collective Chinese people” outside Yarkand in northwestern China's Xinjiang region on July 17. (Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)

from the WaPo

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Dui Hua, a California-based group that advocates for political prisoners in China, said in a statement Thursday that the 57-year-old professor — who was convicted in 2018 on charges of endangering state security by promoting “splittism” — had lost an appeal of her sentence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region High People’s Court.

At a regular press briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was “unaware” of Dawut’s case. “What I can tell you is that China is a law-based country and handles relevant cases in strict accordance with the law.”

A former professor at Xinjiang University and leading scholar on Uyghur folklore, she is among more than 300 intellectuals, artists and writers believed to be detained in Xinjiang, amid a government campaign ostensibly aimed at better assimilating China’s Muslim minority and promoting ethnic harmony. Rights groups have accused the Chinese government of committing “cultural genocide” by wiping out previously vibrant local Uyghur culture.

A member of the Chinese Communist Party for many years, she received awards and grants from China’s Ministry of Culture, according to Dui Hua. Her work at Xinjiang University, which included the founding of an Ethnic Minorities Research Center in 2007, was also funded by the government.

In 2014, another prominent academic, Ilham Tohti, who taught at Minzu University in Beijing, was sentenced to life in prison.

E.U.’s Sakharov human rights prize awarded to jailed Uighur intellectual, probably angering China

Dawut’s family announced her disappearance in 2018 and, in 2021, former co-workers told Radio Free Asia that she had been imprisoned and sentenced but that no details as to the length of her sentence were given.

“Confirmation of Rahile’s life sentence should give us pause to grasp the ruin visited on family lives of China’s genocide,” Uyghur Human Rights Project’s director of research, Henryk Szadziewski, said.

“The Chinese state has taken a wrecking ball to any expressions of Uyghurness outside of its purview. As a gifted academic documenting Uyghur knowledge, targeting Rahile is no coincidence.”

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)