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[Follow-up: the Attack on Jimmy Sham on October 16]

The #Muslim community in Hong Kong released a statement today (Oct 17), condemning the brutal attack on activist Jimmy Sham and expressing their will to stand with the people of Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, protesters also promised that they will NOT damage:
1) the Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre;
2) the Chungking Mansions;
3) shops owned by the local South Asian community
And they will NOT indiscriminately assault local South Asians.

These are the responses to sources that stressed the ethnicity of the assailants in the attack on Sham, possibly with an intent to create division in the city.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156183351346673&id=503151672
Indiscriminate Attack towards the crowd and #Muslim

(20 Oct) Jordan, a German who has lived in Hong Kong for seven years, said that the crowd in front of the Mosque were very peaceful and calm, they had not showed any violent acts, and yet the water cannon vehicle suddenly arrived at the gates and sprayed blue water at the crowd, causing at least two injuries, one of them was a believer inside the Mosque, "One got completely showered from head to toes, all is blue colour." Concerning the actions of the police, he bluntly said that what the police had done was ridiculous, inhumane, and unacceptable, and he encouraged the people of Hong Kong to stay strong and do not give up, "You are not alone, Germany is watching."

#PoliceState #PoliceBrutality #IndiscriminateAttack #Islam
Source: Apple Daily

Video: Police shot water cannon at the Mosque
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/8787
[Today Xinjiang, Tomorrow Hong Kong 1/8]

Muslim Kazakh were arrested for listening to Kazakhstan songs in Xinjiang

According to the news of “Radio Free Asia”(RFA), government of Ili Kazakhstan in Xinjiang arrested 30 Kazakh recently. They are Muslims and many them were arrested for listening to Kazakhstan songs. Some of them were prosecuted immediately and a 19-year-old teenager was given a 15-year sentence.

These #Muslim Kazakh were accused of illegally sharing overseas songs and videos, which are simply song sang by singers in the Republic of Kazakhstan’s, in #WeChat. In fact, there is a complicated relationship between Kazakhsin Xinjiang and peoole living in the Republic of Kazakhstan .

Ms Deli, who is now settled in Kazakhstan, confirmed that her nephew was arrested on 7 July The case was opened on 6 August and he was given a 15-year sentence to immediately. “The People’s Public Security of Ili Kazakhstan arrested 30 people in July and August. The reason of getting into the trouble is simply listening to songs sang by the Kazakh singers.“ she said.
#Xinjiang #Autocracy #Racist #WhiteTerror

Excerpt: https://m.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/2913467?fbclid=IwAR3BSjvczbI0yiBbjSfz6Q2QTyHFVAbU2HdbR5nFLbQO5GPFRBUpJuGrm-k
#Newspaper
Teen's TikTok video about China's Muslim camps goes viral

Editor’s note:
(26Nov) US teenager Ms Aziz’s TikTok video clips accusing China of putting Muslims into "concentration camps" have gone viral with the first one generating 1.4 million views on the Chinese-owned social network. As a result, she tweeted that TikTok had blocked her from posting new content. Tiktok disputed this stating it “does not moderate content due to political sensitivities". Tiktok clips can be viewed on its Chinese and international platforms. Ms Aziz’s clips are still allowed to remain on the international platform but the attention generated is nowhere close. The 17-year-old's videos were posted the same week BBC Panorama revealed how leaked documents detailed some of the measures used to brainwash hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang. China's UK ambassador has dismissed the documents as "fake news".

Click here to read full article

Source : BBC News

#XinJiang #ConcentrationCamp #Muslim #ChinaSuppression
#Newspaper

China convicts Uighurs in sham trials at Xinjiang camps

//Detainees were forced to endure countless hours of indoctrination and language classes, perched on small stools.

//In some facilities, they had to watch TV propaganda broadcasts praising President Xi Jinping for hours on end.The slightest infraction, such as a whispered conversation, was met with swift and harsh punishment.

//After picking a crime from the list came a sham trial, in which the detainees had no legal representation and were convicted without evidence or due process of any kind.

//they were handed a piece of paper detailing more than 70 acts and forced to choose one or several of them. Most of them were religious acts, such as praying or wearing a headscarf.

//the Chinese government has released those with Kazakh residency permits, passports and family members living in Kazakhstan, which is home to a sizable Uighur community.

//For those without outside links and citizenship, however, it is virtually impossible to escape China's vast network of repression and constant surveillance.

//"They threatened us: 'if you don't pick anything, that means you did not confess your crime. If you don't confess, you will stay here forever.' That's why we picked one crime,"

//one man managed to refuse, a rare show of individual bravery in a camp surrounded by high walls and watchtowers and guarded by armed officials.Over the course of three days, officials — some high-ranking — berated him endlessly, trying to force him to sign a confession... he was released into months of strictly monitored house arrest. At the time, he says, he was the only one who was freed, while all the other detainees remained in the camp.

//most acts deemed illegal were of a religious nature is a further indication that the Chinese authorities are targeting the religion and cultural practices of its Muslim minorities in an attempt to eradicate them

//Since 2016, the Chinese government has been arresting ethnic Uighurs and Kazakhs and imprisoning them in what... have been referred to in the West as "re-education" camps.

//According to estimates, at least 1 million of the roughly 10 million Uighurs and Kazakhs living in Xinjiang have disappeared into the vast network of prisons and camps.

//There are legitimate reasons for Chinese authorities to be concerned about Uighur extremism... decades of cultural and political discrimination... state-sponsored migration of the majority ethnic Han Chinese to Xinjiang, widespread discontent has... turned violent.

//in the majority of cases, China is imprisoning Uighurs based on their religious practices and culture, rather than extremist behavior.

//there are three categories of re-education camps: Those with minimum security, which seem to have been built with the goal of reintegrating detainees back into society and have a strong vocational training element. Secondly, there are medium-security facilities, where detainees spend three to five years but are eventually released. Finally, Ruser says, there are the maximum-security facilities, where detainees are locked up indefinitely, "with no intention of ever letting them back into society again" — an extrajudicial form of detention

//imams and those deemed religious are more likely to be sent to prison, sometimes for decades, most likely as they are considered "irreformable."

//Others were sent to labor camps, like one detainee who told DW she was forced to work in a glove factory.

//Their experience has left deep emotional and physical scars. All of the former inmates DW spoke to suffered from obvious post-traumatic stress disorder, including memory loss and insomnia. During the interviews, they alternated between rage and tears, as they recalled their ordeals, which included interrogations and sexual abuse.

Full Article: DW EXCLUSIVE (08-June)

Further reading:
Trump Signs Sanctions Law Over China Crackdown of Uyghurs
https://international.thenewslens.com/amparticle/136604

#China #reeducationcamp #Detention #Xinjiang #Uighurs #Kazakhs #Muslim #Prison
#Newspaper

China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization

//The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.

//The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang.

//The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply... with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.

//Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018... Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year

//State-backed scholars have warned for years that large rural religious families were at the root of bombings, knifings and other attacks the Xinjiang government blamed on Islamic terrorists. The growing Muslim population was a breeding ground for poverty and extremism which could “heighten political risk,”... Another cited as a key obstacle the religious belief that “the fetus is a gift from God.”

//Outside experts say the birth control campaign is part of a state-orchestrated assault on the Uighurs to purge them of their faith and identity and forcibly assimilate them. They’re subjected to political and religious re-education in camps and forced labor in factories, while their children are indoctrinated in orphanages. Uighurs, who are often but not always Muslim, are also tracked by a vast digital surveillance apparatus.

//“It’s genocide, full stop... These are direct means of genetically reducing the Uighur population.”

//of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children

//While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay

//In other efforts to change the population balance of Xinjiang, China is dangling land, jobs and economic subsidies to lure Han migrants there. It is also aggressively promoting intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uighurs

Full Article: AP News, (29-Jun)

#Xinjiang #Uighur #Han #Genocide #Muslim
#Newspaper

Secret footage shows Uighur man’s detention inside Chinese prison

//Rare footage and text messages secretly sent by a detained Uighur man show chilling evidence of human rights violations by China, as global scrutiny of the situation in Xinjiang grows.

//According to reports by the BBC and the Globe and Mail, Merdan Ghappar, a successful model on the e-commerce platform Taobao, was detained after having spent over a year in prison on a drugs charge his supporters said was trumped up.

//Videos and text messages reportedly sent by Ghappar provide a detailed account of his detention and the shocking conditions he says he witnessed, including teenage boys being hooded and beaten, and of the widespread use of “four-piece suits” – combined restraints that are criticised by human rights groups.

//Other text messages revealed how children as young as 13 are targeted as part of China’s efforts to suppress the Muslim minority group’s religion and culture, with a document calling on children to “repent and surrender”.

//In his texts, Ghappar described being made to wear the “four-piece suit”, being threatened, and held in unsanitary, and dangerous conditions, with prisoners besieged by lice and sharing unwashed eating utensils to consume “the leftovers after the cops had eaten, made into rice soup”.

//The BBC said his messages continued for a few days before ceasing about five months ago, and that authorities had provided no formal information about his location or the reason for his detention.

//International focus on Xinjiang has increased in recent months, including widespread calls for independent investigators to be allowed in. The US has imposed sanctions over China’s treatment of the Uighur and other Turkic Muslim minorities, while other countries are debating similar measures.

//Abuse and mistreatment of the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang has been extensively documented but strenuously denied by Beijing, which claims its policies are to counter terrorism.


Full Article:The Guardian(5-Aug)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/05/secret-footage-uighur-detention-merdan-ghappar-chinese-prison-xinjiang

Video:
https://www.facebook.com/1242755359147955/posts/3142041389219333/?d=n

#Xinjiang #secretfootage #detention #Uighurs #Muslim #reeducationcamps
380 Detention Camps Newly Built or Expanded in Xinjiang Since 2017, Says Australian Study

An investigation by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has shown that China had built nearly 400 detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017.

The ASPI discovered that since 2017, approximately 380 detention camps believed to be used to imprison Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities had been newly built or expanded in western China. The institute divided them into four categories:

• Tier 1: minimum-security re-education camps (around 108)
• Tier 2: slightly higher-security re-education camps, mostly connected to factory and warehouse (around 94)
• Tier 3: moderate-security detention centres (around 72)
• Tier 4: high-security prisons (around 107)

Investigator Nathan Ruser said while Chinese officials claimed that the detainees would be released from the camps, the authorities were still investing in new detention facilities between 2019 and 2020. The investigation report noted that at least 61 detention camps were newly built or expanded between July 2019 and July 2020. 14 of them are still under construction.

Ruser further pointed out that about half of the expanded or newly built camps are high-security prisons, meaning that the Xinjiang authorities may be transferring detainees in re-education camps to prisons.

Source: Stand News #Sep24

#China #Xinjiang #ASPI #Uyghurs #Muslim #DetentionCamp

https://bit.ly/2EG0WIn
British Muslim Community Raises Concerns over Relocation of Chinese Embassy into One of the Most Highly Muslim-Populated Area in UK
 
Concerns from local residents and councillors of Tower Hamlets is raised over China’s decision to move its embassy in London from the West End to Tower Hamlets. With the highest percentage of Muslim residents in the UK, the Tower Hamlets community has expressed their unwelcoming of the embassy unless China stops abusing the Muslims in the Xinjiang region. 
 
The new Chinese Embassy in UK will relocate to the site of the historic Royal Mint, which is located in the peripheral area of Tower Hamlets.  Just steps away from the original Chinatown in the 19th century, the location holds historical significance to China.  However, it is also home to one of the largest British Muslim communities, with about 40% of its residents belonging to the Islamic faith, in addition to being one of the lowest income neighbourhoods.
 
Even though the move will not be completed until a few years later, opposition within the Tower Hamlets community is growing stronger by the day as reports on China’s cruel abuses towards the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are being exposed.  According to the US State Department, China has imprisoned over 2 million Muslims of Uyghur and other minorities, subjecting them to forced labour while their women are sexually mutilated and even violated.  Residents of Tower Hamlets have voiced their objection, stating that unless China put these inhuman actions to a stop, the embassy is not welcome to move into their area.
 
#CCPChina #Uyghur #ChineseEmbassy #UK #Muslim #FreeUyghur 
 
Source:  Apply Daily #Oct04

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20201004/ZM66K54EOJDEDLBV524BWBIQ6U/
Malaysia Refuses to Extradite Uyghurs to China. Scholar Says Malaysia’s Move Might Anger Beijing

Reuters reported that the Malaysian government declared its stance in September this year to firmly refuse extraditing Uyghur refugees to China. South China Morning Post reported on November 15 that the move could drive Uyghurs to seek refuge in Southeast Asian Muslim countries. The report also said that this move represented Malaysia’s declaration of Uyghurs’ status for the first time, and contrasted its neighbouring country Indonesia. A professor from George Washington University has said, “This is likely to anger Beijing, but it is a responsible move.”

The report said that the government of Malaysia, a country with the majority of its population being Muslims, mentioned in a response to the Parliament in September that even if requests were to come directly from Beijing, they would not repatriate Uyghurs who have sought refuge in Malaysia. This move represented Malaysia’s declaration of Uyghur’s status for the first time, and contrasted its neighbouring country Indonesia. Last month, Indonesia repatriated three Uyghurs back to China.

#Malaysia #China #Indonesia #Uyghurs #Muslim #Refugee

Source: Stand News #Nov15

https://bit.ly/2KGu3xX
#Chinazi #Genocide #ConcentrationCamp
Uighurs forced to eat pork as China expands Xinjiang pig farms

Sayragul Sautbay, who was detained in a re-education camp in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang, still suffers from nightmares and flashbacks from the “humiliation and violence” she endured.

"Every Friday, we were forced to eat pork meat,” Sautbay said. “They have intentionally chosen a day that is holy for the Muslims. And if you reject it, you would get a harsh punishment.”

She added that the policy was designed to inflict shame and guilt on the Muslim detainees and that it was “difficult to explain in words” the emotions she had every time she ate the meat.

Read full article
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/4/holduighurs-forced-to-eat-pork-as-hog-farming-in-xinjiang-expands

Source: Aljazeera #Dec4
#Muslim #Halal #Pig
As China Tracked Muslims, Alibaba Showed Customers How They Could, Too

The website of Alibaba, one of the world’s most valuable internet companies, taught its corporate customers how they could detect members of a minority group with its facial recognition software. The feature was built into Alibaba software that helps web platforms monitor digital content for material related to terrorism, pornography and other red-flag categories, the website said.

After The Times asked Alibaba about the tool, the company edited its website to remove the references to Uighur and minority faces and declined to explained why information of this feature had been included official documentation of its software.

Source: New York Times #Dec16

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/technology/alibaba-china-facial-recognition-uighurs.html?referringSource=articleShare

#Alibaba #China #FacialRecognition #Muslim
ICC rejects Uighur genocide complaint against China

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have rejected calls by exiled Uighurs to investigate China for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity, the chief prosecutor's office said in a report on Dec 14 2020.

The Uighurs handed a huge dossier of evidence to the court in July 2020 accusing China of locking more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in re-education camps and of forcibly sterilising women. But, the office of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said it was unable to act because the alleged acts happened on the territory of China, which is not a signatory to The Hague-based ICC.

Source: France 24 #Dec14

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201214-icc-rejects-uighur-genocide-complaint-against-china

#Uighur #ICC #genocide #Muslim
U.S. Allies Diverge Over Labeling China’s Treatment of Uyghurs as Genocide

China’s repression of Uyghurs is dividing U.S. allies over whether to characterize human-rights abuses against the mainly Muslim minority as genocide.

New Zealand’s government blocked on Wednesday a parliamentary motion that would have labeled China’s actions genocide, illustrating the precarious balancing act facing the South Pacific country between its longstanding ties and security alliance with the U.S. and its trade ties to China. Australia has also shown a reluctance to use the term.
 
Source: WSJ #May05

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-allies-diverge-over-labeling-chinas-treatment-of-uyghurs-as-genocide-11620207782

#China #Australia #Uyghur #Muslim