sandeep Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-education-camps.html Rampant and systematic abuse of muslims, and greenbros can't stop tossing chinese salad. These guys are so blinded by their hatred and fear of India, that they will blindly support a regime that is torturing thousands of muslims - even more than India in Kashmir. Quote What does it take to intern half a million members of one ethnic group in just a year? Enormous resources and elaborate organization, but the Chinese authorities aren’t stingy. Vast swathes of the Uighur population in China’s western region of Xinjiang — as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities — are being detained to undergo what the state calls “transformation through education.” Many tens of thousands of them have been locked up in new thought-control camps with barbed wire, bombproof surfaces, reinforced doors and guard rooms. The Chinese authorities are cagey and evasive, if not downright dismissive, about reports concerning such camps. But now they will have to explain away their own eloquent trail of evidence: an online public bidding system set up by the government inviting tenders from contractors to help build and run the camps. Uighurs have more in common, culturally and linguistically, with Turks than Han Chinese, and many Uighurs are Muslim. Resentful of China’s heavy-handed rule in the region, some have resisted it, usually through peaceful means, but on occasion violently, by attacking government officials and, exceptionally, civilians. The state, for its part, fuels Islamophobia by labeling ordinary Muslim traditions as the manifestation of religious “extremism.” Over the last decade, the Xinjiang authorities have accelerated policies to reshape Uighurs’ habits — even, the state says, their thoughts. Local governments organize public ceremonies and signings asking ethnic minorities to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party; they hold mandatory re-education courses and forced dance performances, because some forms of Islam forbid dance. In some neighborhoods, security organs carry out regular assessments of the risk posed by residents: Uighurs get a 10 percent deduction on their score for ethnicity alone and lose another 10 percent if they pray daily. Uighurs had grown accustomed to living under an intrusive state, but measures became draconian after the arrival in late 2016 of a new regional party chief from Tibet. Since then, some local police officers have said that they struggled to meet their new detention quotas — in the case of one village, 40 percent of the population. A new study by Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology, in Korntal, Germany, analyzed government ads inviting tenders for various contracts concerning re-education facilities in more than 40 localities across Xinjiang, offering a glimpse of the vast bureaucratic, human and financial resources the state dedicates to this detention network. The report reveals the state’s push to build camps in every corner of the region since 2016, at a cost so far of more than 680 million yuan (over $107 million). A bid invitation appears to have been posted on April 27 — a sign that more camps are being built. These calls for tenders refer to compounds of up to 880,000 square feet, some with quarters for People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary security force. Local governments are also placing ads to recruit camp staff with expertise in criminal psychology or a background in the military or the police force. Evidence of these technical details is invaluable, especially considering the growing difficulties faced by researchers and reporters trying to work in Xinjiang. Several foreign journalists have produced important articles, despite police harassment and brief arrests; ethnic Uighur reporters, or their families, endure far worse. Given the risks, firsthand accounts from former detainees remain rare — although a few are starting to emerge. In February, a Uighur man studying in the United States gave Foreign Policy one of the most detailed descriptions of detention conditions published to date. He was arrested upon returning to China for a visit last year, and then held for 17 days on no known charge. He described long days of marching in a crowded cell, chanting slogans and watching propaganda videos about purportedly illegal religious activities. As he was being released, a guard warned him, “Whatever you say or do in North America, your family is still here and so are we.” Last month, an ethnic Kazakh man described to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty his four-month stint in a camp in northern Xinjiang. He met inmates serving terms as long as seven years. He said he had been made to study how “to keep safe the domestic secrets” of China and “not to be a Muslim.” In these cases, as in many others, detainees were held incommunicado, their families left to wonder what had happened to them. And now these rare eyewitness accounts are being corroborated, if unwittingly, by the Chinese state itself, as it makes public calls for contracts to build even more detention camps. Many details of this carceral system are hidden, and remain unknown — in fact, even the camps’ ultimate purpose is not entirely clear. They serve as grounds for compulsory indoctrination. Some officials use them for prevention as well, to lock down people they presumptively suspect of opposing Chinese rule: In two localities, the authorities have targeted people under 40, claiming that this age group is a “violent generation.” The camps are also tools of punishment, and of course, a threat. Few detainees are formally charged, much less sentenced. Some are told how long a term they will serve; others are simply held indefinitely. This uncertainty — the arbitrary logic of detention — instills fear in the entire population. Surveillance was markedly heightened during my last trip to Xinjiang in December — so much so that I avoided talking to Uighurs then for fear that just being in contact with a foreigner would get them sent away for re-education. Meanwhile, my Uighur contacts outside China were pointing to the quota-based purges of the Communists’ Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957-59 and ever-shifting rules during the Cultural Revolution to explain that even if Uighurs in Xinjiang today wanted to submit wholly to the security regime, they no longer knew how to. Joining the security services used to be a rare way to ensure one’s personal safety. Not anymore. Tens of thousands of families have been torn apart; an entire culture is being criminalized. Some local officials use chilling language to describe the purpose of detention, such as “eradicating tumors” or spraying chemicals on crops to kill the “weeds.” Labeling with a single word the deliberate and large-scale mistreatment of an ethnic group is tricky: Old terms often camouflage the specifics of new injustices. And drawing comparisons between the suffering of different groups is inherently fraught, potentially reductionist. But I would venture this statement to describe the plight of China’s Uighurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz today: Xinjiang has become a police state to rival North Korea, with a formalized racism on the order of South African apartheid. There is every reason to fear that the situation will only worsen. Several accounts of Uighurs dying in detention have surfaced recently — a worrisome echo of the established use of torture in China’s re-education camps for followers of the spiritual movement Falun Gong. And judging by their camp-building spree in Xinjiang, the Chinese authorities don’t seem to think they have come close to achieving whatever their goal there is. Turning_track, Stradlater and Garuda 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stradlater Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Chinese muslims aren't the true ones. If only Pakistanis gave half as much thought to their plight as they do towards Kashmiris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 And whole world looks the other way. Hope in a decade or two India will have enough influence and do the same in Cashmore valley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandeep Posted May 16, 2018 Author Share Posted May 16, 2018 4 minutes ago, Number said: And whole world looks the other way. Hope in a decade or two India will have enough influence and do the same in Cashmore valley. Rather hope that we don't need to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Just now, sandeep said: Rather hope that we don't need to. Yeah but that seems unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Pakistanis on ICF, the stage is all yours. Please enlighten us about the stance of Pak military and govt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarcastic Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Well done, PRC! You rock... hope rest of the world will follow your lead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechEng Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 29 minutes ago, Gollum said: Pakistanis on ICF, the stage is all yours. Please enlighten us about the stance of Pak military and govt. Pakistan is on horns of dilemma. They cannot choose to be friends with a India country because their very foundation was built on hatred of India, at the same time they need China because their economy is in doldrums. I have a feeling that UK will become the new Pakistan and London the new Islamabad, with the rate of illegal immigration on rise and a passive British police force. Gollum and adi B 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechEng Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 4 minutes ago, sarcastic said: Well done, PRC! You rock... hope rest of the world will follow your lead! While being assertive is very important for protecting yourself, what China is doing is completely disgraceful. Karma will hit them back if they don't move towards more moderate metohds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarcastic Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 4 minutes ago, MechEng said: While being assertive is very important for protecting yourself, what China is doing is completely disgraceful. Karma will hit them back if they don't move towards more moderate metohds. Well, I am not supporting everything they do. But do not be afraid of any community and that is good thing to learn for all countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kira Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 1 hour ago, MechEng said: While being assertive is very important for protecting yourself, what China is doing is completely disgraceful. Karma will hit them back if they don't move towards more moderate metohds. Karma didn't hit them back for destroying the peaceful Buddhist monks of tibet, don't think it will hit them for hurting muslims, actually they are earning good karma incase of the muslims DHONI_FANN 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dial_100 Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 10 minutes ago, kira said: Karma didn't hit them back for destroying the peaceful Buddhist monks of tibet, don't think it will hit them for hurting muslims, actually they are earning good karma incase of the muslims Dont worry. Everybody pays for their karmas. They wont escape. They will pay for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechEng Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, kira said: Karma didn't hit them back for destroying the peaceful Buddhist monks of tibet, don't think it will hit them for hurting muslims, actually they are earning good karma incase of the muslims You never know man... People of China are not free, it's an unwritten rule once you visit China - never ask for an opinion from a Chinese person about the government. Some day in future there could be rebellious movement by the people against their government, total anarchy. China kicks our ass in many things, but at least I can say that we as people are miles ahead in freedom to choose the life we want when compared with people of China. Edited May 16, 2018 by MechEng Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mariyam Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 4 hours ago, sarcastic said: Well done, PRC! You rock... hope rest of the world will follow your lead! Why does the PRC rock? Why should the rest of the world follow their lead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 For the Hans, everybody not a Han is an outsider in China MechEng and Tibarn 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarcastic Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 28 minutes ago, Mariyam said: Why does the PRC rock? Why should the rest of the world follow their lead? Because they do not heed to individual community's but encourages people to think rationally and not follow any dogma taught by anyone. Most of the world governments seem to bend their heads on "we should respect someone's sentiments" and so on. I am not saying specifically about any particular community. Sethusamudram project is also another example where the Govt has bent (for the so called public demand). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 No matter how much China develops in the future it will never be a match for the free western world that actually places human rights (at least of its own people) as an ideal to aspire to. I respect China's rise but thank the Indian founding fathers for going about things in our unique way even if it is time consuming and chaotic. sarcastic, sensible-indian, riya and 2 others 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarcastic Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 47 minutes ago, Gollum said: No matter how much China develops in the future it will never be a match for the free western world that actually places human rights (at least of its own people) as an ideal to aspire to. I respect China's rise but thank the Indian founding fathers for going about things in our unique way even if it is time consuming and chaotic. If SC Bose's INA has reached New Delhi and the British Indian army surrendered before 1945, India could very well be such a state like PRC, dictated by military might. For good or bad, it was not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stradlater Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 4 hours ago, sarcastic said: Because they do not heed to individual community's but encourages people to think rationally and not follow any dogma taught by anyone. Most of the world governments seem to bend their heads on "we should respect someone's sentiments" and so on. I am not saying specifically about any particular community. Sethusamudram project is also another example where the Govt has bent (for the so called public demand). China encourage people to think rationally? Really in what world? People go missing there if they even so much as criticize govt policies. There's an atmosphere of fear with very limited freedom of speech. You have no idea how Lucky we Indians are in that regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tibarn Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 Threats to China are 1) possibly getting stuck in the middle income trap 2a) demographic collapse due to 1-child policy: some projections have their population falling all the way to the 500 million range! 2b) the collapsing population is also aging, so the possible 500 million will be disproportionately old people None of those are existential threats. The West has risks of: 1) Aging population + overburdened welfare systems 2) Stagnant economies 3) Renewed economic protectionism hurting Europe 4) Europe becoming Eurabia and the US becoming North Brazil #4 is an existential threat to the West. I much rather be China going forward. Moochad and velu 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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