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:
Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities
Assembling dozens of experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities, this open-access book features a series of essays on the global value of cultural heritage, recent examples of intentional cultural heritage destruction across the globe, and how it can be protected.
Until Nothing is Left: China’s Settler Corporation and its Human Rights Violations in the Uyghur Region
This report documents the human rights violations of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a state-run paramilitary organisation.
Nury Turkel: Will the world stand up for China's Uyghurs?
Nury Turkel, a prominent Uyghur activist in exile and chair of the US commission on international religious freedom, is a key leader in the effort to pressure China to end the repression of the Uyghurs. But is his campaign doomed to fail?
Chinese use Muslim holiday for propaganda purposes, celebrating with Uyghurs
China’s state media reported on huiju work teams of local cadres who “visited” Uyghurs bearing gifts of food and who helped them work in their fields in celebration of the holiday. State media also released a video of Uyghurs dancing in what some observers said were staged performances.
China Destroyed Muslim Culture In This Ancient City — Then Turned It Into Disneyland
The government’s campaign in Kashgar began with CCTV cameras watching people pray. Now it features tourists taking Instagram selfies.
Xinjiang officials said to pay Uyghurs to perform dance at Kashgar mosque
Authorities in Kashgar allegedly paid Muslim Uyghur men to dance outside the most famous mosque in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region to celebrate the end of Ramadan, RFA reports.
Chinese officials restrict number of Uyghurs observing Ramadan
Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are restricting the number of Muslims allowed to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, drawing heavy criticism from rights groups that see the government directive as the latest effort to diminish Uyghur culture in the region.
Beyond Silence: Transnational Repression of Uyghurs
This report assesses the growing scale of repression of Uyghurs in the Arab states as China’s relations there have strengthened.
Uyghur volleyball coach gets 8 years in jail for ‘befriending bearded men’
A national-level Uyghur volleyball coach is serving an eight-year prison sentence for “befriending bearded men,” under a deepening crackdown on Islamic practices and culture, a Uyghur living in exile and a local police officer told RFA. Alimjan Mehmut’s name is also on a list of Uyghur torchbearers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games who have been imprisoned in recent years, caught in a wider crackdown on the ethnic minority group.
Hundreds of Uyghurs said to be detained in camp in Xinjiang’s Manas county
Nearly 800 Uyghurs are being held in a detention camp in Manas county in northwestern China’s Xinjiang, said an official from the area who previously worked at the facility. The official also said that the Uyghur inmates had been arrested for committing “serious crimes,” such as praying, and that inside the facility they learned “the national language” of Mandarin Chinese.
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?
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.
The Xinjiang Emergency: Exploring the causes and consequences of China's mass detention of Uyghurs
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the site of the largest mass repression of an ethnic and/or religious minority in the world today. Existing reportage and commentary on the crisis tend to address the various forms this takes in isolation, but this ground-breaking volume brings them together, exploring the interconnections between the core strands of the Xinjiang emergency in order to generate a more accurate understanding of the mass detentions' significance for the future of President Xi Jinping's China.
Uyghur woman sentenced to 14 years for teaching Islam, hiding Qurans
Uyghur woman sentenced to 14 years for teaching Islam, hiding Qurans.
Tibetan monks, local residents forced to watch destruction of sacred statue
Authorities in China’s Sichuan province last month forced Tibetan monks and other local residents to watch the demolition of a large and venerated Buddha statue following official complaints that the statue had been built too high, Tibetan sources said.
How I escaped a Chinese internment camp
Zumrat Dawut is a mother of three from Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang autonomous region in China. In 2018, she was arrested and sent to a detention facility for Uyghur women where she said she endured brutal living conditions and beatings. This comic, featuring art by Fahmida Azim, tells Zumrat's story.
Terror & Tourism: Xinjiang eases its grip, but fear remains
Four years after Beijing launched a brutal crackdown that swept up to a million or more Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities into detention camps and prisons, its control of Xinjiang has entered a new era.
Criminal Law and Deprivation of Liberty in Xinjiang
This paper delves into official statistics and Chinese law to investigate the use of criminal proceedings as a tool of repression in Xinjiang try and understand how the criminal law is being used to detain Uyghurs.
CCP: 100 Years of Suppression
In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the CCP’s ambitions, it is important to analyze both the historical and current injustices perpetrated by the Chinese government, particularly in Tibet, Xinjiang , and Hong Kong — three regions where the CCP’s state-sanctioned policies appear to be the most widespread and concerning.
China: Draconian repression of Muslims in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity
Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region face systematic state-organized mass imprisonment, torture and persecution amounting to crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said as it launched a new report and campaign today.