29 April 2019
Synonyms for humanity are; compassion, brotherly love, kind-heartedness, consideration, understanding, sympathy and tolerance. These words describe what humanity should be, they are the same principals that Islam a religion of peace is based on. A religion no matter what should be valued and respected as its a belief system and a way of life for people. Islam doesn’t harm people, people harm people. China is going against these principles of humanity and international law by detaining people purely for their religious beliefs and ethnicities.
The Uighurs are muslims in China’s far north-western region of Xinjiang, they are a peaceful, autonomous (self-governing) people. With heritage, culture and long standing traditions linked with the Mogul empire and Genghis Khan. Xinjiang has a population of 20 million, 15 million of which are minorities including the Uighurs, Han, Kazakhs, Tibetans, Hui, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Mongols and Russians. A nod to 1940s Germany, China is detaining these minorities (mainly Uighurs) on a mass scale in these camps. China as a country has always been insecure about religion, as they have a constant fear of anything that could be construed to be contradictory to their regime.
In the last few years, (no one really knows how long China denied anything to do with this until December 2018) China has been sending Uighurs muslims into first “poverty alleviation camps”, and now “reeducation centres”. Amnesty international on the other hand call them detention camps, those who are detained rarely get out. These camps (estimated in numbers between 200 to 1200) they’re credible reports that 1.8 million Uighurs, Kazakhs, Hui and other ethnic minorities had been held against their will. China is slowly trying to erase their culture, languages and religion. In the camps there are reports of torture; like the tiger chair, sleep deprivation, force feeding muslims pork and alcohol. Uighurs in the UK can't make contact with their family in Xinjiang, mothers, daughters, brothers and sisters that used to pick up the phone and ask about their day are now unreachable. This is an entire community and religion is under suppression and surveillance.
China says that these re-education camps are stamping out extremism, by drilling chinese propaganda down the detainees throats, as well as making them learn mandarin and embrace chinese culture, whatever that means. A woman was reportedly sent in for receiving an eid mubarak text (how extreme), China knew this because chinese officials have the authority to do random spot checks on the inhabitants of Xinjiang whenever they please, this means checking your phone on-sight, full body searches and home invasions.
In 2014 China sent 200,000 (and subsequently thousands more over the coming years) plain clothed officials to the area to carry out these checks and ‘improve relations in the field’. But these officials have been totally relocated, been given state built accommodation while Xinjiang province is being built up with concrete tower blocks, destroying the ancient cities to replace them with new ones. Any time reporters have tried to enter the area they have been followed and hounded by these officials, and have not been able to have unsupervised trips around the area and camps. But when they did, they had a rendition of ‘if you're happy and you know it clap your hands’ in mandarin from the detainees… At least they have a sense of humour about it...
Erik Prince, the man behind Blackwater, a private security firm that used to operate in Afghanistan and Iraq, a company that has killed civilians; been taken to court and prosecuted for it. Blackwater; synonymous for being overly aggressive, brutish and trigger happy. Well now, America's boy, Erik is back with a new company FSG a hong kong based security and logistics firm that has recently signed a deal with chinese authorities to set up a training centre in Xinjiang.
A major heritage site in Xinjiang is the 15th-century Id-Kah Mosque, which can house up to 20,000 worshipers, but alas going to the mosque too much is punishable by you being detained, they know your islamic attendance as they have live stream CCTV in place, how very omniscient. The 74 year old imam got hacked to death by three axe wielding men, two of whom were shot dead, they said that this was an act of “holy war”. Yet no camps for these extremists and somehow Muslim students are forced to eat during ramadan. China have also shown the amount of respect they have for the religion by retranslating the the holy Quran into something more regiym friendly. For some reason the chinese government is treating Islam as a contagious ideological disease whose sufferers must be quarantined.
Kashgar is a city dripping in culture spanning over 2000 years, being a key stop on the old silk road. Kashgars heritage is getting bulldozed down, the ancient city is being buried and the history of thousands of years is being erased, a casual cultural genocide. China is planning to spend an astonishing 900 billion on building infrastructure to build the new silk road, which they say will lead to a golden age of commerce. Beijing say that its willing to lend upto 8 trillion to 68 countries to build infrastructure, but some countries are suspicious of China’s real geopolitical intentions. This new Trans-Eurasian trade infrastructure could bolster poorer countries to the south of China, and the world. Once they have paid china’s dept of that is...
China's problem with Islam doesn't seem to be contained in the country however, when Myanmar had buddhist terrorists burning, raping and pillaging muslim villages in the western state of Rakhine, causing 700,000 Rohingya muslims to flee their homeland to seek refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. China who has close links to Myanmar voted against the UN to establish a body to investigate the possible genocide in Rakhine, saying that this atrocity should not be ‘internationalized’.
Genocide, detention camps, suppression and surveillance. Drone strikes from Pakistan to Yemen killing innocents day after day. How can 40 school children be classed as collateral damage for the war on supposed terror. The people that I stand shoulder to shoulder with, toe to toe with are being persecuted. We know that our politicians swindle us with manipulation and misinformation. Just look at brexit. We know that our media turns a blind eye and misdirects us with party policy. People are being harmed, injured and killed in their space of sanctity; in recent days a mosque was being destroyed while people were still inside praying. Where's the value for human life? Religion being used as a shroud for men gaining power isn't a new thing. Islam does not insight violence.