#NeverAgain is happening again. This time the victims are the #Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the occupied East Turkistan (aka Xinjiang, China). In fact, ‘Xinjiang’ literally means ‘New Colony’ in English.
Nevertheless, the majority of Uyghurs never endorsed or advocated for independence for once an independent country #EastTurkistan. The vast majority of the people of East Turkistan just wanted to live their lives peacefully but with human dignity.They never wanted to go against the war machine of communist China. People were OK with Chinese passports, but they just wanted to be able freely practice their own religion, culture and speak their native language as promised by the Chinese government prior to the annexation of East Turkistan by the communist China.
In fact, according to the historical documents the Chinese promised to grant a Soviet style Autonomous Republic status to East Turkistan. However, as soon as the Chinese army(PLA) had successfully occupied the whole territory of East Turkistan under the direct aid of Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1949, the Communist Chinese government did not keep their promise but granted a ‘Uyghur Autonomous Region’ status. Despite all of these betrayal, the people of East Turkistan were OK as long as the Chinese kept their promise for the ‘autonomous region’ and respect the rights of native people according to the original ‘self ruling’ laws granted by the ‘Uyghur Autonomous Region’ regulations.
Yet again, the Chinese government kept violating their own constitution and breaking their promises once more. The most serious and recent ones were being the so called “Second Generation Minority Policy” advocated by Ma Rong, Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe around 2011. It got worse when current supreme leader of China Xi Jinping had taken control of the Chinese government. Xi Jinping not only adopted the ultra racist “Second Generation Minority Policy” but also has taken it to a new level by endorsing a genocidal “final solution” plan.
Given the historical facts and the continuous repression against the Uyghur people by the Chinese government, there are different opinions among the Uyghurs and one of the these opinions is directly confronting the Chinese government and forcing the government to keep their promise and acknowledge the ‘real autonomy’, otherwise seeking for full independence. But the reality was that the latter group consist only very small portion of the ~20 million total population of East Turkistan.
The vast majority people of East Turkistan (Xinjiang) just wanted to live their lives peacefully with their basic human rights respected, nothing more. However, even these are seen as a sign of extremism and disobedience towards the central government of the communist China.
It all started getting worse when China sentenced Uyghur professor Ilham Tohti for life imprisonment in 2014. This showed China does not allow any forms of ‘real autonomy’ and merely advocating for equal rights is a crime. In 2016 the world witnessed the emerging of the “Re-education camps” in East Turkistan where ~1 million people are detained. In 2018, China arrested former chairman of XUAR, Nur Bekri. This shows that simply being born as a Uyghur is a crime. No matter how you serve the Chinese government, you will still be seen as an enemy.
In 2019, there are an estimated 3~5 million innocent Uyghurs detained in he concentration camps merely for being a Uyghur. More specifically, any of the original Turkic people (including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, etc.) of East Turkistan is seen as the enemy of the Chinese state. Those people are in the camps not because they wanted to be independent, but merely because of their ethnic identity.
If this is not a genocidal act, then what is? It is a genocide in so many ways.
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