China warns UN members not to attend panel on human rights: report

China has warned fellow United Nations member states not to attend a panel on human rights abuses in Xinjiang sponsored by a think tank and two rights groups on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, the National Review reported. The event organized by the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International aims to put more pressure on China to stop its repression and violence against mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the restive, far-western region of China. China’s permanent mission to the U.N. expressed…

Authorities wall off Xinjiang village to control Uyghur movement

Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have completely walled off a village of 13,500 people in a bid to control their movement, subjecting them to 24-hour surveillance and restricting their access to a single gate each for residents and vehicles, according to security personnel. The enclosure of Chuluqai village in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture’s Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) county – roughly 650 kilometers (400 miles) west of Urumqi, the regional capital – is the latest attempt by authorities since the 2000s to surveil Uyghurs under the pretext of maintaining peace…

Once hailed as role model, Uyghur entrepreneur sentenced to 15 years

For years, the young Uyghur entrepreneur was held up in Chinese media as a role model for other Uyghur youth – a clean-shaven, smartly-dressed young man who returned to China to start his educational consulting business after getting an MBA in the United States. “Rather than staying abroad, he decided the best place to launch his career was in Beijing,” read a June 2014 article about Abdulhabir Muhammad in the state-run Global Times that included a photo of him in a dark suit and tie, smiling and sitting confidently behind…

China says its camps are closed, but Uyghurs remain under threat

In Xinjiang, questions about disappeared family members remain unanswered and reports of dubious arrests continue to emerge despite claims by the Chinese government that a widely condemned internment campaign targeting Uyghurs has ended. The Chinese government has said the detention camps in China’s far western region were vocational training centers where the “students” voluntarily learned new skills. In 2019, the Chinese Communist Party said the attendees had graduated and most had found good jobs. But RFA Uyghur has confirmed that detentions continue, and satellite images reviewed by the service indicate…

Among Uyghurs, China aims to ‘meld Islam with Confucianism’

In late July, a group of Chinese government officials and academics met in Urumqi to discuss how Xinjiang was implementing a national plan to “Sinicize” Islam.  The officials did not bring up the religious sites China has demolished, or the Islamic books it has burned, or the Uyghurs it has “re-educated” in concentration camps for any suggestion of Islamic belief, according to a Xinhua News agency summary of the event. Those actions proceeded under separate Chinese Communist Party plans.  But the plan they were responsible for, a five-year work outline…

UN labor organization discussed forced labor during Xinjiang visit

A delegation from the U.N.’s International Labor Organization made an unannounced visit to China’s Xinjiang region last week, saying it discussed the issue of Uyghur forced labor but drawing criticism from rights groups that said it should have consulted with them beforehand. The organization engaged in “technical discussions about the implementation of China’s laws and practice of ratified international labor conventions concerning discrimination in employment and occupation, as well as forced labor,” the ILO told RFA in a statement on Tuesday. The ILO did not indicate if delegates could freely…

Stop tourism of Xinjiang, Uyghur advocacy group says

Western travel agencies must stop offering tours of China’s far western Xinjiang region because they are implicitly supporting Beijing’s repression of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live there, a new report by a Uyghur advocacy group says. “Travel companies have no business in running tours to sites of ongoing atrocities,” said Omer Kanat, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, or UHRP, in a statement issued Aug. 30, the day the report was released.  “Nobody would have dreamed of taking tourists into Rwanda, Cambodia under the Khmer…

Rights groups blast UN for inaction on China’s repression in Xinjiang

Human rights groups criticized the United Nations for failing to take concrete action against China for its repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, saying the international body has done little since releasing a damning report a year ago stating that Chinese may have committed crimes against humanity against the mostly Muslim group. The report issued on Aug. 31, 2022, by former U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights Michelle Bachelet highlighted “serious human rights violations” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region amid what Beijing has described as steps to counter terrorism and religious…

Uyghur design director from Turkey confirmed detained in Xinjiang

A Uyghur design director who has worked for a Chinese locomotive manufacturer in Turkey for more than a decade was arrested by Chinese authorities in March when he returned to Xinjiang for a family visit, company employees said. Qahar Eli, 39, left Turkey on March 27 with his family on a month-long trip to visit his parents in the town of Turpan with an assurance from his company that he would be allowed to return to Turkey, said his lawyer Wadat, who gave only one name.  Although he had a…

2 Uyghur suspects in Bangkok bombing return to court after 9-month delay

After appearing in court in a wheelchair as their trial resumed Tuesday, one of two Uyghur men suspected in a deadly bombing in Bangkok said that his eight years of confinement had taken a toll on his health.   Adem Karadag and co-defendant Yusufu Mieraili have been incarcerated since they were arrested within two weeks of the Aug. 17, 2015, attack at a Buddhist shrine, and they returned to court on Tuesday after a nine-month hiatus in the case, which is still only in the prosecution phase.   While Mieraili walked into…