The event is meant to ‘foster the Chinese nation\u2019s valuable traditions and spread patriotic education’ among participants.<\/p>\n
2016-08-25<\/p>\n
Local authorities in a county in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region have forced Muslim Uyghur farmers, government workers, teachers, and the unemployed to participate in a mass event where they had to dress in traditional Chinese garb and perform tai chi, RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service has learned.<\/p>\n
Uyghurs from the 25 towns in Yarkand (in Chinese, Shache) county of Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture performed in a so-called \u201c10 Thousand People\u201d national anthem and tai chi event on Aug. 18 at 12 Mukam Square in Yarkand, local sources said.<\/p>\n
Tai chi is a centuries-old form of Chinese martial art that promotes serenity and inner peace through a series of slow, flowing body motions.<\/p>\n
Many of the men and women, who had to dress in white and pink Chinese tunics and trousers for the event, came from the towns of Awatbazar, Beshkent, and Misha Yarkand, they said.<\/p>\n
The purpose of the forced performance was to \u201cfoster the Chinese nation\u2019s valuable traditions and spread patriotic education\u201d among the residents of Yarkand county, according to Tianshannet, a regional government news website.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sing the National Anthem and Perform Tai Chi event is held to raise the Yarkand people\u2019s patriotic sentiments,\u201d said Wang Yongji, Yarkand\u2019s communist party chief, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe published everything [about the event] on the website clearly,\u201d said an official from Yarkand county\u2019s propaganda office, who declined to give his name. \u201cI cannot tell you anything more about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others interviewed by RFA were also reluctant to discuss the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who do not have jobs and government workers participated at once in this event,\u201d said a young Uyghur woman from Yarkand country who declined to give her name. \u201cPrivate business owners were not called in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event lasted about four or five days and had about 20,000 participants, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you this much,\u201d she said. \u201cIt might not be good to talk much about it. Please ask other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Push to assimilate\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Ilshat Hasan, president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association, criticized the event as another attempt by China to weaken Uyghur ethnic and cultural identity and force Han Chinese identity on the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Sing the National Anthem and Perform Tai Chi event is another indication of China\u2019s push to assimilate Uyghurs into Chinese culture and terminate their ethnic identity,\u201d he told RFA. \u201cTai chi is typical of Chinese culture. It has no connection to Uyghur culture whatsoever.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this event Uyghurs were dressed as traditional Chinese, indicating that China is getting more extreme in their push to assimilate Uyghurs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In April 2015, Chinese authorities forced Uyghur imams in Kashgar to dance in the town\u2019s main square and female teachers had to pledge not to teach Islam to children, according to a report in Pakistan\u2019s Express Tribune<\/em>.<\/p>\n The imams were also forced to tell children that prayer was harmful for the soul and to chant slogans in support of the state over religion and declare that \u201cour income comes from the Chinese Communist Party, not from Allah,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n Xinjiang has been an autonomous region of China since 1955, though Beijing continues to crack down on its Uyghur inhabitants to prevent what it calls the \u201cthree evils\u201d of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism there.<\/p>\n Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n But experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur separatists, and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012.<\/p>\n Reported by Irade Ablet for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The event is meant to ‘foster the Chinese nation\u2019s valuable traditions and spread patriotic education’ among participants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}