China: The Orwellian Lives of Uighur Muslims

China.

The Orwellian Lives of Uighur Muslims.

After reading this, please look into the first-hand accounts of Muslims from China who have undergone the vile treatment I am about to discuss. Nothing I write can properly describe what they have gone through.

In 2018, satellite images above western China showed unexpected changes to the landscape. These new photographs showed an area in Xinjiang, occupied with large, grey buildings, surrounded by barbed wire, and dotted with security towers. Reports and investigations into the area were and still are hard to come by, with strict policing of anyone attempting to gain information as to what these new, eerie looking compounds are to be used for. It was hard to argue however, that what was being photographed was anything other than a concentration camp. Those who are unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of these impenetrable walls is no secret: Uighur Muslims, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities. The reason for their incarceration is what is contested.

    These camps are officially known as ‘Vocational Education and Training Centres’ by the government of China, built and run for ‘Re-education’. What goes on inside these compounds is as disturbing as the name suggests. Uighur Muslims are forcibly sent to these centres against their will, because of their beliefs in Islamic teachings. Xinjiang is under some of the most strict and comprehensive security measures ever seen by a state against its own people, with tracking via facial recognition as well as monitoring and policing of mobile phone content. Long beards, headscarves, and even Islamic sounding names are banned in the region. China is cracking down on its Muslims.

    Once inside, those captured are forced to live the life of a prisoner; links to the outside world are severed and all personal freedom removed without so much as a trial. Descriptions of life inside are harrowing. Only a handful of detainees have ever escaped, and even fewer have been released. This truly is one of the worst human rights cases in recent times. Life on the inside is a silent, unsanitary hellhole, with violent beatings and torture sessions never too far away. However, none of this compares to the inhumane atrocity whereby forced sterilization programmes are run in these camps. All women between nineteen and fifty-nine have IUDs fitted; this barbaric act shows just how far the Chinese Communist Party will go to dehumanise these minorities.

    If any of this is beginning to sound familiar, cast your eyes back to Europe in the 1930s. With Adolf Hitler’s construction of concentration camps for those he deemed ‘undesirable’, these events are disgustingly similar. With glossy propaganda similar to that of Germany decades ago, Chinese state-run TV also shows peaceful scenes of its ‘students’, who appear to be grateful for their capture, as well as the sinister reasons behind it. The CCP initially held the view that there was an extremist problem manifesting with a minority of Uighur Muslims. It is now apparent that the Chinese state wants the Uighur identity removed from the face of the earth. This is genocide.

    The only reaction to come from the UK has been to ban the import of goods suspected of using forced labour. Not only does this mean our Government is aware of the barbarism that is happening in China, it fully recognises that this is morally unacceptable. By only cutting potential trade links in such a small way, this feels like nothing more than the UK covering its own back and not addressing the issue at all. More needs to be done. With the Chinese Winter Olympics approaching in 2022, I believe a boycott similar to the one attempted against Hitler’s 1936 Games is necessary. A democracy like the UK cannot be seen to accept such anachronistic behaviour. So the next time you are tempted to buy a product with the all-too-familiar ‘Made in China’ label attached, spare a thought for the beaten, gang-raped, incarcerated woman who after being sterilised like livestock, was put to work to make your clothing, all because of her religious beliefs.