By Arman
On November 24, after the fire broke out in a Urumqi neighborhood with the largest concentration of Uyghurs, the global media reported on the subsequent protests that the fire triggered. They, however, called the Uyghur neighborhood by its Chinese name: “Ji Xiang yuan.”
Uyghur Times asked the readers about the Uyghur name of the community. With the help of our readers, we found the official name to be Behit Sadaet Gulluki (Auspicious Park) located in Block 71, First Street, He Ping South Road, Urumqi.
Although our agency has contacted many people who have relatives or have lived in the area, almost no one knows the Uyghur name of this neighborhood. That proves that one of the points of the Chinese regime’s genocidal policy is to damage and destroy the Uyghurs’ native language.
Because of the Chinese restrictive policies on the Uyghur language and script, the Uyghur residents were required to use Chinese names for the neighbeihourds and residential areas. But generally, Uyghurs prefer to use Uyghur names for almost everything in daily life, even for those areas that are inhabited by Han Chinese, whether in original Uyghur or translated from other languages and accepted by the residents.
Speaking to the New York Times, Mr. Tahir Imin said: “This incident proves that China has never cared about the life and death of Uyghurs.” Similarly, one can often not find an Uyghur name for the area where Uyghurs live, and on the other hand, it turns out that the Chinese government has never cared about the customs and written language of the Uyghurs.