The UCA Asian Studies Program and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia hosted a virtual workshop led by Dr. Zach Smith, Assistant Professor of History, that dove deeper into issues that are not well known in the United States regarding the current human rights crisis in China.
At the event, “The Uyghur Crisis and Islam in East Asia: What Everyone Needs to Know, two Uyghur speakers from Xinjiang, shared stories about news topics that involve learning camps across the country, the uprise in prison sentences, forced sterilizaion and abortion practices, and the destruction to the culutre, tradition and land that was caused by the Chinese government.
The speakers, Mustafa Aksu, Program Coordinator of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, and Akida Pulat, Outreach Director of the Campaign for Uyghurs, discussed different subjects of concern during the event, including personal hardships they have encountered through this time.
The website for the event states that “since 2017, the Chinese government has imprisoned over one million Uyghur Muslims in what has become the largest mass interment of an ethnic minority group since World World II.”
Both Aksu and Pulat touched on the distress that has been created by the lack of means to communicate with family members and friends that are still in Xinjiang and surrounding areas because of the power the Chinese government holds over citizens.
“In may of 2017, in Harvard law school, my parents told me ‘don't come back ever.’ And I was shocked and confused. And I was like, ‘why?’” Aksu said. “And then they told me, ‘don’t talk too much on the phones, focus on your studies and don't call us anymore.”
Pulat lost connection with her mother who was detained by the Chinese government during the ongoing genocides and struggled to get any information about her whereabouts from her other family members.
Pulat said, “I kept asking my family members, ‘where is my mother?’ They just tell you that they cannot tell you where she is or why she's gone. The only thing they can tell you is don't ask too many questions, be patient, and pray like we hope that your mother can return home soon.”
Aksu brought to light the Chinese government’s acts of disguising concentration camps as learning or religion camps across China and provided many statistics about forced labor in the area.
“The government denies that there are camps and said that they are vocational training schools, but images show barbed wire and guard towers. And they were forced to say over and over ‘my soul was infected with a disease’ and ‘I do not believe in God’ and ‘I believe in the communist party,’” Aksu said.
The speakers discussed another rising issue in China in regards to the persistent Artificial Intelligence operations growing in even the smallest cities across the country, which allow the government to spy on its citizens, giving them even more power.
A call to action must be made to help educate more individuals on the ongoing human rights crisis in China, resulting in the uplifting of the Uyghur culture.
Commentaires