China Wants Uighur Refugees Back From Thailand

ABC News

AP
BEIJING — Nov 15, 2014, 9:08 AM ET

More than 200 refugees detained in Thailand earlier this year are believed to be Chinese Uighurs and should be repatriated, a Chinese consul said, dismissing concerns they will be mistreated.

The refugees' claim to be Turkish cannot be confirmed and they refuse to cooperate with Chinese authorities on proper identification, said Qin Jian, the consul in Songkhla.

"They have been uncooperative and refused to communicate at all," Qin said.

The refuges are likely fearful of being mistreated in China if they are returned, although Qin said such concerns are unwarranted.

"If they do not have criminal records back in China, there will be no prosecution," the consul said.

Tensions between minority Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese have left about 400 people dead in the past 20 months. Beijing has blamed the violence on terrorism, separatism and extreme religion and has harshly cracked down in the Uighurs' far northwestern home region. But human rights groups say the heavy-handedness is further alienating the Uighurs.

In March, Thai immigration officers rescued 220 men, women and children held by presumed human traffickers at a remote camp. Qin said there has been no confirmation of their Turkish identity after staff from the Turkish embassy met with the group.

Dozens of men have been identified as Chinese Uighurs and the others in the group are believed to be based on their physical features, habits and customs, Qin said. He declined to elaborate.

The Washington-based Uyghur American Association has called upon the Thai government not to return them to China but allow them access to the United Nations' refugee agency for asylum requests.

"Uyghurs have been forcibly returned into the hands of their persecutors in the past with dire results," said Alim Seytoff, president of the association in a statement.

Seytoff said China's economic and political leverage with other governments leaves genuine refugees unprotected and that the increasing numbers of Uighur refugees is an indication of Beijing's repression of the Muslim minority.

Thai officials have said their investigation is not yet complete.

The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History

For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet—have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing’s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past. Beyond broadening our knowledge of tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government, this meditation on the very concept of history probes the limits of human interaction with the past.

Uyghur historical practice emerged from the circulation of books and people during the Qing Dynasty, when crowds of pilgrims listened to history readings at the tombs of Islamic saints. Over time, amid long journeys and moving rituals, at oasis markets and desert shrines, ordinary readers adapted community-authored manuscripts to their own needs. In the process they created a window into a forgotten Islam, shaped by the veneration of local saints.

Partly insulated from the rest of the Islamic world, the Uyghurs constructed a local history that is at once unique and assimilates elements of Semitic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic traditions—the cultural imports of Silk Road travelers. Through both ethnographic and historical analysis, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur Historyoffers a new understanding of Uyghur historical practices, detailing the remarkable means by which this people reckons with its past and confronts its nationalist aspirations in the present day. —Harvard University Press

U.S. urges China to preserve cultural religious identity of Tibet

U.S. President Barack Obama during a joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (China), on November 12, 2014. EFE/How Hwee Young

Beijing (EFE) – The U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged the Chinese authorities to “take steps to preserve the unique cultural, religious & linguistic identity” of Tibetan people, although he recognized Tibet as part China.

“We are not in favor of Tibet’s independence,” Obama said in a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The U.S. president said that the nations who protect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities are the most prosperous and successful societies, and are also most capable of complying with rights of the people.

Obama also commented about the controversial topic of pro-democracy Hong Kong protests and industrial cyberespionage asking the communist authorities to respect the intellectual property.

The U.S. leader also exchanged points of view regarding respect for human rights with his Chinese counterpart, according to whom, China has evolved a lot in that aspect.

China blames terrorist groups for violent incidents in Tibet and Xinjiang, home to Uyghur ethnic minority, while Tibetans and Uyghurs accuse the repression by Beijing at all levels.

Nine human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, signed a letter in late October urging Obama to consider the hostile attitude by the Chinese government of civil society as a barrier to their bilateral relations during his visit to China.

http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/2792689_u-s-urges-china-to-preserve-cultural-religious-identity-of-tibet.html

Escape of suspected Uyghur from Thai shelter probed

Journal of Turkish Weekly – More than 100 Muslim women and children have fled government shelter following discovery in rubber plantation.

Thailand’s human rights commission is investigating the disappearance of more than 100 suspected Uyghur women and children from a government social shelter following their discovery in a southern Thai rubber plantation.

The Bangkok Post reported Thursday that as of November 6, 137 had fled the social shelter and only a few had been recaptured. The commission has said it is looking into their escape.

The women and children were part of a group discovered by Thai immigration police in Songkhla province in March and subsequently declared illegal immigrants. They claimed to be Turkish nationals, but it is suspected that they were actually Uighur Muslims who had fled the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Ahmet Akay, the deputy chief of mission from the Turkish Embassy in Bangkok, told the Anadolu Agency in Songkhla at the time that he had been sent to help with their identification.

“I have been instructed to establish their identity. My findings will be passed to my headquarters. They don’t have documentations, as far as I know.”

Police Major General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, the chief of Thailand’s immigration bureau in the south, said that the group would not provide any personal information, such as their country of origin, their nationality or how they arrived in southern Thailand.

He said he suspected that they were part of a human trafficking network that work with local “agents.”

“Rohingya refugees have come through this region and lately more Bangladeshi have been arriving on our shores. This is the first of such a group, of this scale, who appeared to have originated from Central Asia,” he added.

Chinese and Turkish diplomats met with the group soon after, with Beijing asking that they be returned to China.

In the subsequent months, authorities separated the women and children from the men and started a nationality verification process. Of the women and children, 169 were placed in a government run social shelter in Songkhla, while the men were detained at several immigration police jails.

Of the 169, 137 subsequently escaped.

Human rights commissioner Niran Pitakwachara, who has travelled to Songkhla to investigate, said Thursday that he suspected that those who had left had attempted to cross the nearby border into Malaysia.

He said that officials in charge of the shelter will be summoned by the Human rights commission to explain how so many could escape.

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/175457/escape-of-suspected-uyghur-from-thai-shelter-probed.html

China Offers Work Placements And Mixed Marriage Incentives As Solutions For Its Xinjiang Problems

Some of the 489 workers from Xinjiang prepare to board as they set off for Guangdong province to start new jobs. (Huang Guobao / Xinhua)

By Eric Meyer – On October 29, 2014 in Urumqi, 489 special travelers climbed on the slow train to Guangdong that takes 50 hours to cross the whole of China diagonally. All of them where Uighurs.They were making this trip in order to start a new life, which was a part of a national plan to spread Uighurs across the country.

The concept had been validated by Xi Jinping at a two-day forum on Xinjiang in May. Localgovernments were invited to offer young Uighurs work and educational opportunities so as “to enhance mutual understanding”. As one of the wealthiest provinces, Guangdong had committed itself to take 5000 of these individuals up to 2016. This year, a total of 1,000 have departed.

This scheme has been very carefully prepared at both ends of China. A similar attempt had been tried five years ago ended in failure. At that time, in a toy factory in Shaoguan (Guangdong), 800 Uighurs from Shufu (Xinjiang) had been attacked by the rest of the workers, mostly Han Chinese, who accused them of raping two Chinese women. Two Uighurs were killed and 120 were injured in a stampede that occurred during this incident. Protests had then followed in Xinjiang, leading to a very short and extremely violent upheaval in Urumqi that left 200 dead.

So before once again taking up this scheme, the Chinese Government spent five years reflecting on what had gone wrong earlier and trying to fix the problems.

The main step was carefully screening the future migrants in order to weed out notorious extremists. All those accepted for the program then underwent training on ethnic unity, law, and Han Chinese etiquette and manners. From Xinjiang, one local official would accompany 50 of the migrants, who are granted renewable permits to stay as long as they wish.

Concerning the plan’s quality and its chances of working, James Leibold, a foreign scholar with considerable expertise on Xinjiang, believes that many hurdles will have to be overcome on the path to success. For instance, the six Chinese companies who had agreed to accept the Uighur employees probably did not wholeheartedly acquiesce to the plan. They did so only after having their arms twisted and being guaranteed subsidies from the local government. And while the objective is to achieve a degree of mingling among the workers’ “social groups”, local officials will arguably wish to keep them separate, so as to avoid any trouble.

Another strange measure launched two months ago (beginning of September) is the offer by local governments in Xinjiang, such as the one in Qiemo, to give out 10.000 yuan per year for five years to couples in mixed marriages. This is a lot of money in a territory where average income last year totaled 7600 yuan. Adding this grant to the regular income of such a couple could quickly make them rich, at least by local standards.

Another series of benefits go beyond this annual payment. For example, 90% of the medical bills of these mixed couples will be covered by free insurance, and they will also receive housing benefits if the union lasts more than three years. Other perks include exemption from school fees within the county, a 3000 yuan yearly scholarship for their child(ren) reaching college followed by another one of 5600 yuan for those children reaching university.

This scheme, which has also been applied in Tibet, seeks to overcome the divide between Han Chinese and ethnic minorities in order to“increase interethnic contact, exchange and mingling” (交往交流交融) and was officially ratified at the Second Central Xinjiang Work Forum.

But can it work? Probably not, as it confuses some key issues. While it would be more than nice for young eloping people from both ethnic sides to receive such goodies, such benefits certainly cannot alone lead the potential couples to forget about the mistrust and prejudices which exist between Uighurs and Han Chinese. Besides, marriages based completely on money tend to be less durable than one based on true love and respect.

Conclusion: Incentives for mixed marriages, placement of Uighurs throughout Han Chinese regions and the high speed train to Urumqi, are all political investments by China’s rulers to secure peace and harmony among the troubled Uighur ethnic minority group. They leave no doubt about the total commitment of the CCP to solve the problem and succeed at both developing and integrating the Uighurs.

The problem here, however, is twofold. The Uighurs were not consulted on any of these initiatives and none of the measures addresses their core grievance, namely the feeling that they are being deprived of their land and culture. Thus, Beijing’s new palliatives for the Xinjiang problem will at worst fail and at best become just one element of a broader and more effective approach to winning Uighur loyalty. And that comprehensive solution has yet to be advanced.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericrmeyer/2014/11/13/chinas-newest-recipes-for-solving-its-xinjiang-problem-work-placements-and-mixed-marriage-incentives/

China identifies ‘dozens’ of Uighurs in Thailand: report

Reuters – Chinese officials in Thailand have identified “dozens” of Uighurs from the Chinese region of Xinjiang who were rescued by Thai police from a human-smuggling camp and those confirmed from China will be sent home, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday.

Thai police previously told Reuters that the roughly 200 people rescued in March were believed to be Uighurs, a Muslim people from the western Chinese region who speak a Turkic language, many of whom chafe at government restrictions on their culture and religion.

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said China’s consulate in the southern Thai city of Songkhla had identified some of the men and discovered “dozens” of them were Uighur.

But it did not know the nationality of women and children who are also with the group, the newspaper said.

“Once we confirm that they are Chinese, they would be sent back to China,” a Chinese diplomat surnamed Qin told the newspaper.

In 2009, 20 Uighurs were deported from Cambodia to China despite the objections of the United Nations and human rights groups, who said they faced lengthy jail terms upon their return.

New York-based Human Rights Watch also criticized Malaysia for deporting six Uighurs to China last December.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, however, told a daily news briefing in Beijing that he could not confirm that any of the people in southern Thailand were Uighur.

“China has maintained communication with the Thai side. Our attitude is that we are opposed to illegal immigration,” Hong said.

Hundreds of people have been killed in unrest in Xinjiang in the past two years, prompting a crackdown by Chinese authorities.

Small numbers of Uighur people have begun trickling out of China to Southeast Asia. They are believed to go overland into Laos or Myanmar, and then on to Thailand and elsewhere.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Robert Birsel)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-china-thailand-uighur-idUSKCN0IY0R120141114?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Polluting Factories Wreak Havoc in Xinjiang’s Once-Fertile Township

• 
  

A map of Kumul prefecture in northwestern China's Xinjiang region.

RFA

Factories opened by a rapid influx of majority Han Chinese migrants have devastated the environment and public health of a once-fertile township in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, according to ethnic minority Uyghur residents who say the local government has ignored their pleas to have them shuttered.

Since the end of the 1990s, dozens of Han Chinese factories—many of which were shut down for violations in other parts of China—had relocated to Rahetbagh township in Kumul (in Chinese, Hami) city and brought pollution with them, Uyghur residents said.

They said that Rahetbagh, which means “comfortable and beautiful garden” in the Uyghur language, has now been reduced to an environmental wasteland with choking smog and tainted soil.

Abla Kichik, a Uyghur farmer and resident of Rahetbagh’s Changghu village who served as village chief during the 90s and early 2000s, told RFA’s Uyghur Service that the factories have destroyed local agricultural production.

“Environmental pollution has become a serious problem in our township within the last 15 years,” Kichik said.

“Before that, our township was renowned for its wheat, grain, and cotton cultivation, as well as local specialty goods such as the Hami melon and other fruit. But nowadays, we cannot produce quality goods because of the heavy pollution.”

Kichik said that the prized Hami melon has been grown for generations in Rahetbagh, but that degraded air and soil quality have affected the fruit’s flavor and caused it to lose its reputation on the market.

He blamed Han Chinese company executives, who he said have been allowed by the Kumul city government to resettle their factories on township territory free of charge after pressuring local village chiefs.

“They built an unofficial industrial park here, which includes a cement factory, a glass factory, a chemical acid factory, and so on. These factories and their waste products have not only polluted the air, but also our soil and living environment,” he said.

“Most of the factories and plants moved to Xinjiang from China’s inner provinces. The government had already closed some of the factories there, so the owners and company bosses simply moved them to our hometown.”

Kachik said that people in Rahetbagh are suffering from “various kinds of diseases and strange illnesses,” including respiratory problems such as asthma, throat and sinus infections, and even cancer.

Nasir Akhun, a farmer and resident of Chaychimehelle village in Rahetbagh, told RFA that “a huge amount of black smoke” covers his village every morning and that children and the elderly often find themselves short of breath.

He said that his village has been forced to abandon its focus on growing Hami melons and other produce to support the local economy due to the heavy pollution.

“The government arranged for us to cultivate cotton instead. Cotton is described as white gold in Xinjiang, but our polluted and smoggy air has changed the color of our cotton to black,” he said.

Petitions ignored

Kichik said that he and his fellow Changghu villagers had gone several times to petition the Kumul city government over the township’s pollution problem and demand that authorities shut down the offending factories.

Kumul city is the capital of Kumul prefecture, located on the northeastern border of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

“The city government told us that the factories and plants made a great contribution to the economic development of Kumul city. They also said that the pollution problem was not only our problem, but all of China’s problem,” Kichik said.

“Since then, the Rahetbagh township government has not allowed us to petition any further.”

Akhun said that he had experienced similar resistance from officials when trying to alert them to the problems facing Rahetbagh because of the factory pollution.

He said that residents of Rahetbagh believe the factory owners are relatives of, or people with close ties to, former Xinjiang ruling Chinese Communist Party secretary Wang Lequan and profit from his protection.

“They can occupy any land or obtain any benefits they wish,” he said.

“We have petitioned to the Kumul city and Kumul prefectural governments several times [to shut down the factories], but nobody listens to us.”

Linked to migrants

Uyghur farmers in Rahetbagh say the problems in their township are linked to the greater issue of Han Chinese migrants moving to Kumul prefecture in growing numbers since the founding of the People’s Republic in China in 1949.

Kumul, located on the border with Mongolia, has traditionally served as an important cultural and geographical gateway between China and Central Asia, and drew large numbers of Han Chinese who later resettled throughout the Xinjiang region, according to the farmers.

They say that former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening-Up” policy of the 1980s saw a particularly heavy influx of Han Chinese move to the prefecture, where they began to gradually appropriate Uyghur agricultural land.

Of Kumul prefecture’s roughly 540,000 inhabitants, nearly 70 percent are Han Chinese, while Uyghurs make up less than 20 percent of the population.

Rahetbagh farmers say that in addition to occupying land without paying compensation and destroying the local environment, the Han Chinese-owned factories have provided comparatively few jobs for local Uyghurs.

Uyghurs in Xinjiang claim to have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness, as more Han Chinese move to the region.

Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.