{"id":3911,"date":"2017-09-11T11:17:21","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T11:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2017\/09\/11\/china-free-xinjiang-political-education-detainees\/"},"modified":"2017-09-11T11:17:21","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T11:17:21","slug":"china-free-xinjiang-political-education-detainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-free-xinjiang-political-education-detainees\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Free Xinjiang \u2018Political Education\u2019 Detainees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Watch<\/a><\/p>\n

(New York) \u2013 The Chinese<\/a> government should immediately free people held in unlawful \u201cpolitical education\u201d centers in Xinjiang and shut them down, Human Rights Watch said today. Since about April 2017, the authorities have forcibly detained thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities at these centers, where they are subjected to propaganda promoting Chinese identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese authorities are holding people at these \u2018political education\u2019 centers not because they have committed any crimes, but because they deem them politically unreliable,\u201d said Sophie Richardson<\/a>, China director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe government has provided no credible reasons for holding these people and should free them immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch interviewed three relatives of detainees held in political education facilities around Kashgar City and Bortala Prefecture in 2017. They said the detentions began in the spring and lasted for several months. They said that people sent to the centers were not presented with a warrant, evidence of a crime, or any other documentation. They did not know which local authorities were responsible for detaining their family members or in some cases, even where they were held.<\/p>\n

The family members said that men, women, and children were all being held. In one case, a family of four, including two children, were taken to a political education facility in western Xinjiang in April for traveling abroad for business and for the Hajj, an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. While one parent and one child were released after three months, the other two are believed to be still in custody.<\/p>\n

State media in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang Daily, <\/em>have reported on these facilities<\/a>. People interviewed and state media generally refer them as \u201ccounter extremism training centers\u201d (\u53bb\u6781\u7aef\u5316\u57f9\u8bad\u73ed) and \u201ceducation and transformation training centers\u201d (\u6559\u80b2\u8f6c\u5316\u57f9\u8bad\u4e2d\u5fc3). The facilities are converted from schools or other official buildings, though some are specifically built for the purpose<\/a>. Media reports have noted that party cadres \u201ceat, live and labor<\/a>\u201d alongside those \u201cwho need to be transformed,\u201d and that life and hours there are \u201cjust like a boarding high school<\/a>\u2026 except the content of learning is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family members interviewed said they believed their relatives were being detained for a number of reasons, including traveling abroad or having families who live abroad. Others may have been targeted for participating in unauthorized religious activities, such as wearing headscarves or other Muslim attire, or merely for having relatives who had been previously arrested by the government. State media reports also said that people who \u201care easily influenced by religious extremism<\/a>\u201d as well as \u201ckey personnel<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a term that refers to people perceived as threats by authorities \u2013 have also been detained in these facilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The family members also said that detainees are required to learn the Chinese language, and recite Chinese and Xinjiang laws and policies. They are compelled to watch pro-government propaganda videos, and to renounce their ethnic and religious identities, reciting slogans such as \u201creligion is harmful,\u201d and \u201clearning Chinese is part of patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not clear how many people are held in these facilities at any one time. An April 5 Xinjiang Daily <\/em>article  reported that over 2,000 people<\/a> had been \u201ctrained\u201d in a Hotan facility, though it does not give a time frame. This report features a Uyghur traditional medicine seller named Ali Husen, who was \u201csent\u201d to this center by the township authorities. Though Husen was \u201cinitially very reluctant\u201d to learn, he increasingly became \u201cshocked by his ignorance.\u201d After two months of education, Husen was asked to \u201cclearly articulate his stance (\u53d1\u58f0\u4eae\u5251)\u201d to a crowd of 5,000 and told them \u201chow extremism had harmed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media reports say that ethnic Kazakhs<\/a> and Kyrgyz<\/a> have also been detained for having traveled abroad or having \u201cspoken about Kazakhstan a lot.\u201d Other reasons for their detentions are not known.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s closest equivalent to this form of detention for political indoctrination is the compulsory \u201cre-education\u201d of hundreds of Tibetans following their return from a religious gathering called the Kalachakra Initiation<\/a> in India in December 2012, during the leadership of Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo.<\/p>\n

The Xinjiang political education detention centers are contrary to China\u2019s constitution and violate international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said. Article 37 of China\u2019s Constitution states that all arrests must be approved by either the procuratorate, the state prosecution, or the courts, yet neither agency appears to be involved with these detentions.<\/p>\n

International human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed but not ratified, prohibits arbitrary detention. Detention is arbitrary when it is not possible to invoke a legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty, or when the detaining authority fails to observe basic due process rights, such as to be informed of the reasons for arrest, to contest the detention before a judge, and to have access to lawyers and family members. While some Chinese laws \u2013 including the Counterterrorism Law, the Xinjiang Implementing Measures of that law, or the Xinjiang Counterextremism Regulations \u2013 envision authorities \u201ceducating\u201d people about extremism, none of those laws allow authorities to deprive people of their liberty.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnjustly detaining and forcibly indoctrinating people will only increase resentment toward the government, not engender loyalty,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cChina should instead allow greater freedoms so people in Xinjiang can express their criticisms and ethnic and religious identities peacefully and without fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government Repression of Uyghurs<\/strong>
Xinjiang, in northwestern China, is home to 10 million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities. The Chinese government has imposed pervasive discrimination, repression, and restrictions on fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion. Opposition to central and local government policies has been expressed in peaceful protests, but also through bombings and other acts of violence.<\/p>\n

The Chinese government has long conflated violent and nonviolent forms of political advocacy in Xinjiang. Authorities treat expressions of Uyghur identity, including language, culture, and religion, as well as aspirations for independence, as one of the \u201cthree [evil] forces\u201d (\u4e09\u80a1\u52bf\u529b), that is, \u201cseparatism, terrorism, and extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Xinjiang authorities say many Uyghurs have \u201cproblematic ideas<\/a>,\u201d including Uyghur nationalism, extreme religious dogmas, and pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic identities. These are to be addressed by targeting their thoughts<\/a>. Authorities say that these ideas<\/a>, which they believe spread from Central Asia and the Middle East to Xinjiang, are incompatible with the Chinese government\u2019s views about a united Chinese national identity.<\/p>\n

Since Party Secretary Chen Quanguo moved from Tibet<\/a> to lead Xinjiang in August 2016, the Xinjiang regional government has enacted policies that restrict foreign ties. It has recalled passports<\/a> from Xinjiang residents since October 2016, which restricts foreign travel for these residents and gives police wide power to scrutinize residents\u2019 proposed visits abroad. It has ordered Uyghur students studying abroad, including in Egypt<\/a>, to return to Xinjiang, and made Egyptian authorities round up students who failed to return in July 2017.<\/p>\n

There have also been reports of people being sentenced to prison for more than 10 years for studying or traveling abroad. Chen has also stepped up surveillance of residents, already under heightened security measures and an ongoing \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign, by employing<\/a> the latest technologies<\/a>, as well as<\/a> hiring thousands more security personnel<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Watch (New York) \u2013 The Chinese government should immediately free people held in unlawful \u201cpolitical education\u201d centers in Xinjiang and shut them down, Human Rights Watch said today. Since about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3911","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\/3911","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=3911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3911"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}