Imprisoned million Chinese Muslims want to know Why Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists are silent about them

 

During the past three years, the Chinese Government has sent one million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims to prisons and internment camps, in Xinjiang the north-western region of that country The clampdown is aimed at weakening this population's devotion to Islam These mass detentions have provoked global outrage and the victimised Muslim community has, many a time, asked the Pak leadership that if it has been crying hoarse over the so-called difficulties of Kashmiri Muslims, why has not a word been uttered about the internment of Muslims in China. Not only the Pak leadership, none of the Kashmiri separatist leaders has, ever, talked about the suppression of the followers of the Muslim faith in China.

These unfortunate citizens have informed the international community of the other governmental efforts to target Muslim children. Half a million of such kids have been separated from their families and placed in Government, or the ruling Chinese Communist Party-controlled boarding schools. By the end of the current year, the Chinese Government plans to operate one or two schools in each of Xinjiang's townships, which number more than 800 These schools are designed to assimilate and indoctrinate children at an early age, away from the influence of their families Students get forced to enrol because authorities detain their parents and other relatives, who are ordered to take jobs, far from home. The government agencies describe them as unfit guardians, because they fail to teach the kids importance of secular values. Such schools are off- limits to outsiders. These are tightly guarded. It is difficult to interview residents in Xinjiang without putting them at risk of arrest.

According to information, collected and disseminated by the New York Times, education is a key component of Chinese President Xi Jinping's campaign to wipe out Muslim extremist violence in Xinjiang. It is a ruthless and far-reaching effort that also includes mass internment camps and sweeping surveillance measures. The idea is to use boarding schools as incubators of a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to both the Communist Party and the nation. The long- term strategy is to conquer, captivate and win over the young generation from the beginning.

To carry out the assimilation campaign, authorities in Xinjiang have recruited tens of thousands of teachers from across China, often Han Chinese, the nation's dominant ethnic group. At the same time, prominent Uighur educators have been imprisoned and teachers have been warned that they will be sent to the camps if they resist.

The children are thrust into a regimented environment and immersed in an unfamiliar culture. They are allowed visits with their families only once in a week, or in two weeks. This restriction is intended to break the impact of the religious atmosphere on the children at their homes.

Public discussion in China, on the trauma inflicted on Uighur children-by separating them from their families-is not allowed. References on social media are censored. At the same time, the state-controlled news media focuses on the party's goals in the region. where predominantly Muslim minorities makeup more than half the population of 25 million. Teachers are urged to ensure children learn to love the Communist Party, motherland and the people"

For decades, now, the Chinese Government has sought to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule in Xinjiang, in part by using schools in the region to indoctrinate Uighur children. Earlier, most classes were taught in the Uighur language, but after a surge of anti-government and anti-Chinese violence, including ethnic riots in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital, and attacks by Uighur militants in 2014, Xi ordered the Communist Party to take a harder line in Xinjiang. In December, 2016, the party announced that the work of the region's education bureau would enter a new phase. Schools were to become an extension of the security drive in Xinjiang, with a new emphasis on the Chinese language, patriotism and loyalty to the Communist Party.

Officials from Xinjiang outlined their new priorities and ranked expansion of the boarding schools at the top. Religion is being characterised as a pernicious influence on children. By early 2017, nearly 40% of all middle-school and elementary-school age children in Xinjiang - about 497,800 students - were boarding in secular schools.

The Chinese language is replacing Uighur as the main language of instruction in Xinjiang. Most elementary and middle school students are now taught in Chinese, up from just 38% three years ago. And thousands of new rural preschools have been built to expose minority children to Chinese at an earlier age. Uighur activists say the overall campaign amounts to an effort to erase their culture.

Tighter security has become the norm at schools in Xinjiang. In Hotan alone, more than $1 million has been allocated in the past three years to buy surveillance and security equipment for schools,

including helmets, shields and spiked batons. At the entrance to one elementary school, a facial recognition system has been installed. To carry out its campaign, the Communist Party needs new schools and an army of teachers, an overhaul of the curriculum - and political discipline. Teachers suspected of dissent are punished, and textbooks are rewritten to weed out material deemed subversive.

The Chinese Communist party launched an intensive effort to recruit teachers for Xinjiang from across China. In 2018, 90,000 were brought in, chosen partly for their political reliability. The influx amounted to about one-fifth of Xinjiang's teachers in 2018. The new recruits, often ethnic Han, and the teachers they joined, mostly Uighurs, were both warned to toe the line. Those who opposed the Chinese-language policy or resisted the new curriculum were labelled "two-faced" and punished. Teachers are urged to express their loyalty, and the public is urged to keep an eye on them. There is evidence that some Uighur children have been sent to boarding schools - far from their homes.

The international community is, earnestly, waiting when the leadership of the Muslim Pak nation and of the secularism- preaching Kashmiri separatists will utter a word about the difficulties faced by the Chinese Muslims.

 

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Courtesy:- Jagannath Dhar   and  Koshur Samachar 2020, January