The Islamic Post Blog

By Safiya A. Khafidh, Islamic Post Staff Writer

Beijing executed Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin last month, not for actual crimes, but for alleged links to the criminal group Al Qaeda. Seven hundred ethnic Uyghurs are known to have been executed in the past few decades, and 16,000 imprisoned.
Rebiya Kadeer, exiled president of the World Congress of Uyghurs (WUC), told Europe World News in April that the Chinese government has been waging a cultural genocide against the Muslims  in the north-western region of Xinjiang.  The government’s discriminatory targeting has escalated in the months leading up to the Beijing Games; and Christian “dissident,” Hua Huiqi, a vocal advocate for religious freedom, was also briefly detained.
Kadeer has called for an international boycott of the Olympics.
The Chinese government, in its turn, has gone out of its way to make concessions for athletes of all faiths, including Muslims, for the free practice of religion during the tournaments in Beijing. But freedom is more limited in Xinjiang, the province formerly known as Uyghuristan, which has been occupied on and off by the Chinese throughout history, who achieved eventual success in 1876 when the Manchurians killed approximately one million ethnic Uyghurs, establishing military rule. In 1949, Communist China established colonial rule of Xinjiang, which name in Chinese signifies “new province.”
Rebiya Kadeer, a mother of 11, who had been imprisoned in China, and two of whose sons remain in detention in the Communist country, now lives in the United States and, according to Europe World News, says Muslims in the region are being “detained, tortured and deported” to other areas of China “in an attempt to crush their language and culture.”
Many of those shipped to other areas of China include minor and adolescent girls, whose families were told they were being taken to apprenticeship facilities, only to find out later that the programs were actually forced slave labor far from home, according to Radio Free Asia.
Radio Free Asia (RFA), a U.S.-owned news outlet also reported that for weeks there have been house-to-house searches that target  the Muslim ethnic minority. State police claim to be looking for anyone  involved in illegal activities, and anyone who can give “no clear account of themselves.”
A mosque was also demolished for having had illegal renovations.
A local police officer interviewed by RFA declined to state how many people had been arrested so far and said, “I cannot provide information on this campaign to the outside world. The local media have not reported this campaign yet. So, I regret, I cannot reveal any more information.”