The Holocaust in China

Kristallnacht—better known as the Night of Broken Glass—signalled the beginning of the Holocaust, the mass eradication of those who ethnically and religiously identified as Jews during the 1940s up until 1945 when the Nazi regime ended.

There is a sense of comfort in believing that we wouldn’t have to live through anything horrific like the Holocaust, except when we’re living through something exactly like the Holocaust. We just didn’t know about it until a few years ago.

Publications leading back to 1998 that report the persecution of Muslim separatists who allegedly fought for extremist causes. That’s a 22-year Holocaust simmering in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China.

There is a common misconception that communist China has a problem with Muslims. This opinion can be countered by the fact that the Hui Muslims in China are enjoying a revival in faith, unlike their Uighur counterparts. This is because of the separatist sentiments in the Xinjiang region that arised with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

When Central Asian states like Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan gained their independence, the dormant independence movement in Xinjiang was stirred into revival after being absorbed into Communist China in 1949. There were many efforts to resist this political integration. Hence, they were labelled separatist. Most of them being Muslim was just “cherry on the top”.

Up until Xinjiang became a part of Communist China, its population was mainly Uighurs but soon after, major development projects that have (in theory) benefitted the whole region, resulted in large-scale migration of technically-qualified Han Chinese from the eastern provinces.

The discriminatory practice of the Han Government in Xinjiang to hire the Han Chinese over the Uighurs has caused resentment, marginalization, poverty and unrest in the population.

This repression boiled on over to the Urumqi riots in 2009. It started with Uighurs violently protesting in the Urumqi market place. The protest lasted for several hours before police troops locked down the Uighur-part of the region. “The rioters threw stones at the police and set vehicles on fire, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detain Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest.”

This protest and the attacks that followed it was not peaceful and resulted in much infrastructural damage and most of them have been attributed to Muslim Separatists.

This protest, like the Tibetan unrest, highlighted the deep frustration felt by the Uighur ethnic minority. They resent the rule of the Han Chinese who’ve kept the oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control, repressing peaceful expression of the Islamic religion and faith since the 1990s.

A Uighur college student says he and his classmates were not allowed to fast during Ramadan. “[Han university authorities] make sure we eat at the cafeteria. They say they don’t want us to be tired, but I don’t believe them. It is because we are Uighur.”

The Hui Muslim are allowed to fast, veil and uphold Muslim commitments—the Uighur Muslims are not entitled to the same liberties. This could be because there is a high concentration of Uighur Muslims in the separatist region of Xinjiang while Hui Muslims are scattered all over China.

Terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda have voiced their ire towards China for the mistreatment of the ethnic minorities. China since then has attributed political freedom and separatist views in the Xinjiang region to terrorist ideology even though there is no proof that violence inside the region is connected to outside terrorist organizations.

Although China’s UK ambassador, Liu Xiamiong, denied claims of abuse in the internment camps in the outskirts of Xinjiang, drone footage depicting shackled prisoners being herded into trains suggest otherwise.

There is an arising opinion that the Uighur Muslims have been detained due to the continuous acts of aggression towards the Han Chinese Government and this accusation applies to only a handful of Uighurs detained in those internment camps. Most of the detainees held in custody are without concrete allegation or evidence.

These camps are built adjacent to factories accrediting the violations of laws against forced labour. The detainees are subjected to inhuman conditions and torture under the Han Chinese Government in these camps.

It has reached the pinnacle of horrifying where the teachers hired by the government to teach Chinese and communist propaganda to these detainees, are fleeing the camps. Such is the story of Sayragul Sauytbay, a witness to the inhuman atrocities before she was given asylum in Sweden.

She witnessed detainees being subjected to the brutality of the Chinese state with conditions like forced sterilization, unprovoked assault, inadequate healthcare and nonexistent hygiene. They were also being used as human subjects for medical experiments that have been reported to have caused cognitive decline and impotence.

Prisoners considered to be observant Muslims were forcibly made to eat pork and consume alcohol and the likes of which are considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam.

Refusing to adhere to their preposterous demands resulted in punishment and punishments in the camps could range anywhere from being deprived of food to having your fingernails ripped out.

Moreover, the communist party has started the 'Pair Up and Become a family" program in the region which enables Han Chinese officials to keep an eye on the families of detained Uighur men and propagate communist ideologies while eating with them. These families have to let these officials inside their homes and address them as "relatives".

China’s good at keeping its secrets. The outside world wasn’t even fully aware of what was happening until they sent a few drones in and put the Chinese officials on-spot.

Only a handful of the detainees have escaped and survived to tell us of the horror stories culminating inside the re-education camps, there are still millions more disappearing into the "vocational centres" of Xinjiang.