The region has been an important target for population resettlement from interior China since 1949.23 With the massive influx of Han Chinese in recent decades, other ethnic groups have felt increasingly marginalized in what they regard as their ancestral land.24
1.2 CYCLES OF DISCRIMINATION, VIOLENCE, AND REPRESSION FROM THE 1980s TO 2016 Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Turkic Muslim groups living in Xinjiang have long faced discrimination and repression by their government. This repression has included violations of their human rights to freedom of movement and freedom of religion, their right to take part in cultural life, as well as their rights to access employment, education, and healthcare. This historical discrimination lessened under the “Reform and Opening” policy launched in the late 1970s and the subsequent economic reforms, which catalysed a revival of Islamic religious practices in Xinjiang as with other religions in the rest of the PRC in the 1980s. The authorities allowed the reopening of mosques, many Muslims were again allowed to travel to Islamic countries, and contact with Muslims abroad was encouraged.25 Chinese authorities’ fears of organized political opposition in Xinjiang appear to have been heightened by the emergence of independent Central Asian states during the breakup of the Soviet Union after 1991 and protracted conflicts in other neighbouring countries. These worries were further heightened by the belief that Islam might provide a rallying point for ethnic nationalism, and that Islamist movements abroad might inspire young Uyghurs who had gone to study in foreign Islamic schools. These concerns combined with other stresses on the Muslim population led to a reversal of the relatively liberal policies implemented during the 1980s, which has generated growing ethnic discontent in Xinjiang.26 The government’s concerns were reinforced by incidents of violence that took place during the mid1990s.27 At that time, the authorities closed many mosques and Qur’anic schools and dismissed or arrested religious leaders deemed to be too independent or “subversive”. Muslims working in government offices and other official institutions were prohibited from practising their religion under threat of losing their jobs. In 1996, the government intensified its campaign against “national separatists”, “religious extremists”, and “illegal religious activities”, launching at the same time an “in-depth atheist education” campaign to purge Muslims from grassroots Communist Party committees and other institutions.28 23 During the first three decades of the PRC, resettlement of Han Chinese into Xinjiang was facilitated by what is now called the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (commonly known as the Bingtuan), an institution established in the early 1950s. The Bingtuan, described by many scholars as an institution that served to colonize Xinjiang, is both an administrative organ with a somewhat military structure and a large development corporation. It is established along the border and in pockets of territory roughly across the centre of Xinjiang, separating the north, where most of the Kazakhs in Xinjiang live, from the mainly Uyghur south. The Bingtuan has jurisdiction over several million hectares of land, and the vast majority of the population in this area is ethnic Han Chinese. It is a unique institution in the PRC and enjoys special status. It is administered independently from the Xinjiang regional government and has its own police force, courts, and agricultural and industrial enterprises, as well as its own large network of labour camps and prisons. For more information see “New Ghosts Old Ghosts – Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China” by James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson, M.E. Sharpe, 1998, p.45. Chapter 3 of the book includes detailed information about the Bingtuan and its network of labour camps and prisons, as well as the separate penal establishments under the Department of Justice of Xinjiang regional government. During the 1990s, the Bingtuan was placed directly under the authority of the central government in Beijing and was granted privileges giving it the same status as Xinjiang regional government. 24 The China Quarterly, “XUAR, Central Asia and the Implications for China’s Policy in the Islamic World”, No.133, March 1993, pp.111-129, and Nicholas Becquelin, “Trouble on the Marches”, in China Perspectives No.10, March/April 1997, pp.19-28; Nicholas Bequelin, New York Times, “Behind the Violence in Xinjiang,” 9 July 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/opinion/10iht-edbequelin.html?_r=1 25 Gaye Christoflersen, “XUAR and the Great Islamic Circle: The Impact of Transnational Forces on Chinese Regional Planning”, The China Quarterly, No.133, March 1993, pp.130-151 26 See Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,” April 1999, www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/144000/asa170181999en.pdf 27 See Gardner Bovingdon, “The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land,” Columbia University Press, 2010; Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,” April 1999, www.amnesty.org/download/ Documents/144000/asa170181999en.pdf 28 See Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,” April 1999, www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/144000/asa170181999en.pdf
“LIKE WE WERE ENEMIES IN A WAR” CHINA’S MASS INTERNMENT, TORTURE AND PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG Amnesty International
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