China: the persecution of the Uighurs
On the night of 9 November 1938, hundreds of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in Nazi Germany were attacked and destroyed, along with countless Jewish-owned businesses. It was “the starting gun for the genocide” that ended in Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka, said Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post. Eighty years on, in northwestern China, it is Kristallnacht every day. As part of Beijing’s repression of its Uighur Muslim minority, mosques, cemeteries and shrines are being bulldozed (up to 15,000 have been lost so far); and a million people have been detained in brutal “re-education” camps, where they are made to renounce their faith and traditions, and speak Mandarin Chinese. Beijing has worked hard to stifle reporting of its crimes in Xinjiang, but it’s becoming clear that what’s being perpetrated in China – the US’s biggest trading partner – amounts to “cultural genocide”.
Beijing claims the camps are “job training” centres; but leaked government documents have confirmed that they’re something far worse, said The New York Times. After a spate of terrorist incidents in the region, President Xi himself directed his officials to show “no mercy” in the battle against “extremists” – and anyone “infected” by extremism. Such people, he said, require a “period of painful, interventionary treatment”, where their “erroneous thinking” can be “eradicated”. Thus the camps were built and an AI-based “predictive policing” and surveillance programme was launched, using cameras and facial recognition software; mandatory fingerprinting and iris scans; and routine checks on phones. Uighurs and other minorities have been flagged up as suspects and swept into harsh, prison-like camps for refusing alcohol, discussing the Koran, or using an unusual amount of electricity. Escapees have reported the use of rape and torture.
We’ve turned a blind eye to China’s abuses for long enough, said Peter Irwin in The Independent. Now is the time for the world to take collective action – and not just the usual suspects, the US and Germany. Muslim leaders speak of Muslim solidarity, said Dr Azeem Ibrahim on ArabNews.com. But many Islamic nations are dependent for their future prosperity on China, owing to its Belt and Road initiative passing through their lands. Beijing has proved adept at playing these countries off against each other – but united, they’d have considerable clout: after all, Belt and Road has to go somewhere. Muslim countries must put their differences aside and use this leverage to stop the persecution of the Uighurs.