All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
A Threat to Justice Everywhere - Persecution of Uyghurs demands an international response
Because China is so powerful, the global community’s failure to hold it to account for the atrocities committed against the Uyghurs could have serious repercussions. Thus far, China has waved away criticisms with renewed assertions of absolute state sovereignty within its own borders. But that idea was rejected with the creation of the United Nations, when member states, including China, agreed to relinquish some of that sovereignty in favor of international human rights.
China's Global Dragnet
Since 1997, the Chinese government has engaged in an unprecedented scale of abuse and reprisals – often called “transnational repression” – against Uyghurs living abroad. These are the 440 people in 40 countries known to have faced detention, deportation, and more from 1997 until March 2021.
The Forced Smiles of Beijing’s Olympics
At the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics earlier this month, 20-year-old skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang placed the last torch into the snowflake-shaped cauldron. She later said, “My country gave me such an important task, and I must do it very well, with immense pride and joy in my heart.” Indeed, the task was much more important than it seems. But it was more than likely not a voluntary one.
Sanction Stations: Battling Back Against Chinese Oppression
Far from being cowed, those subject to retaliatory sanctions by China remain determined to shine a light on violations against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and hold China to account.
What Happens to Uyghurs After Competing in the Olympics?
Amid international condemnation of its treatment of its Uyghur minority, China selected Uyghur athlete Dilnigar Ilhamjan (Dinigeer Yilamujiang in Chinese) for the honor of lighting the 2022 Olympic flame. The 20-year-old cross-country skier can only hope to fare better than the last Uyghur to be so honored.
Immersive simulation attempts to pierce apathy over the Uyghur genocide
Uyghur students in Istanbul are attempting to make people viscerally feel their ongoing genocide. They’ve done that with immersive simulation rooms, and may have, to a high degree, succeeded. “For the simulation part, we want visitors to actually feel the experience,” said Idris Ayas, 29, who came to Istanbul to study law 10 years ago. “By touching the Tiger Chair, by visiting the forced cotton-picking farm, the forced abortion room and the concentration camp cells, visitors actually feel that these things are really happening in 2022.”
Winter Olympics: Games official claims stories of human rights abuses are 'lies’
The Winter Olympics is facing renewed political controversy after a Games official dismissed claims of human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslim population as "lies".
China Is Holding My Uyghur Mother Prisoner. Will President Biden Say Her Name?
The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is well underway. Millions of people will likely tune in to see the spectacle that China has orchestrated—everything from the choreographed pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies to the man-made snow blanketing the ski slopes. China wants the Olympics to project its economic might and global dominance. But for me, the images on the screen will be a bleak reminder of China's oppression and persecution, on a very personal level.
Beijing 2022 organisers claim stories of Xinjiang human rights abuses are ‘lies’
The Winter Olympics have been plunged into further controversy after Beijing 2022 spokesperson Yan Jiarong dismissed human rights violations among the Uyghur Muslim population as “lies” and insisted Taiwan was part of China. Yan, a former member of the Chinese delegation to the UN general assembly, referred to “so-called forced labour” in Xinjiang in response to one question, before saying China was against the “politicising of sports”.
Threatened, harassed, punished: The Uyghur translators defying China to tell Xinjiang’s story
Journalists rely on a short supply of Uyghur interpreters to investigate the human rights crisis in northwest China. The CCP is intent on muzzling them.
World Bank unit is financing Chinese companies that appear to employ forced laborers, report says
An arm of the taxpayer-funded World Bank has provided nearly $500 million in financing to four Chinese companies that appear to have employed forced laborers in the country’s Xinjiang region, according to a new report.
Why targeting ethnic minority journalists is central to China’s crackdown on the press
Tibetan and Uyghur reporters are under siege in Beijing’s war on free expression.
Suspicion and subjugation in Xinjiang
The Chinese authorities have long treated the region – and its people – with suspicion. The abuses there can no longer be ignored.
Historic Uyghur culture is under existential threat
Shaped over centuries by pilgrimage, trade, art and war, a unique culture has been suppressed and exploited by Beijing. Can Uyghur distinctiveness re-emerge?
The Uyghurs’ plight shows the biggest threat to democracy is Western apathy
We know that populist dictators are emboldened by each other’s atrocities, so how many more disappearances will it take before China crosses the West’s “red line”?
“My culture will survive”: the Uyghur poet Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah on her family’s devastating persecution
Cut adrift from her background, Seyyah uses poetry to preserve Uyghur culture and prevent it from being characterised by victimhood. “I’m scared of being defined by only genocide,” she says. “My culture is such a joyful, happy desert – it’s sandy, it’s shifting, it’s hot. My dad was always a happy person. I want my culture to be seen by the world as resilient. It’s been there for thousands of years. It will survive.”
Behind Xi Jinping’s Great Wall of Iron
The 12 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China have been repressed and maltreated because of their religion, ethnicity and opinions; key elements in a policy set out personally by President Xi Jinping.
Financing & genocide: Development finance and the crisis in the Uyghur Region
A joint investigation reveals how the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has several significant investments in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where indigenous peoples have been subjected to what international legislators, legal scholars, and advocates have determined to be a genocide.
The Silencing: a special report on China, the Uyghurs and a culture under attack
From Xinjiang’s network of detention centres to the suppression of tradition, writers report on China’s relentless campaign against the Uyghurs – and what will be lost if it succeeds.
Beijing Olympics: Winter Games start amid Covid and boycotts
The most divided Olympic Games in decades gets under way in China on Friday as Beijing becomes the only city to host both the Summer and now the Winter Games.