Anti-muslim Concentration Camps in China

Justine Ronis-le Moal The Mcgill Daily contentwarning:concentrationcamps,islamophobia,racism.religiouspersecution

On November 14, American legislators introduced bills in the House and Senate that aim to put pressure on the Trump administration to condemn Chinese detention camps. These camps currently house up to one million Uighur Muslims, as well as other Chinese Muslims. The legislation would impose sanctions targeting the sale of Chinese goods, but have no direct impact on individual members of the Chinese government. Canada, France, Germany, and other countries have written to the Communist Party leader of Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, asking him to explain the detention camps.

In response to accusations of massive internment camps in Xinjiang, a western region of China, a Chinese Communist Party official said, “there is no arbitrary detention. [...] There is no such a thing as re- education centers.”

However, over one million ethnic Uighur Muslims are being detained in what the government presents as “re- education schools,” aimed at “combating religious extremism” through legal theory and language learning. Abdusalam Muhemet, who was arrested in 2014, describes the facility in which he was detained as “not a place for getting rid of extremism, [but] a place that will breed vengeful feelings and erase Uighur identity.”

Roughly one tenth of the Uighur population of Xinjiang has been sent to these camps. These detentions target Muslim minority members exclusively. These camps are a result of a crackdown on the Uighur Muslim minority that has grown in the past four years, including a broader context of policies to erase, or at least conceal, Uighur Muslim identity in China.

Legislation prohibits wearing headscarves and long beards, as well as religious instruction. Islamic- sounding names have also been banned. Uighur Muslims face extremely strict travel restrictions and have to relinquish their passports to authorities for “safe- keeping.” Specific prohibitions further target Uighur government officials, who are prohibited from practicing Islam. The expansion of security services and surveillance in Xinjiang have been described by BBC

News as “some of the most restrictive and comprehensive security measures ever deployed by a state against its own people.”