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:
Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: a critical assessment
Since the events of 9-11 and Chinese attempts to link Uyghur separatism to international jihadist groups, a steady flow of reports from the international media—as well as official PRC releases—have given the impression of an imminent separatist and terrorist crisis in the Xinjiang region. This study surveys open sources as well as less easily accessible Chinese documents on violent separatist and terrorist events and groups.
Criminalizing Ethnicity: Political Repression in Xinjiang
This summary of a new report by HRIC and Human Rights Watch examines how the Chinese government has used international campaigns against terrorism as a pretext to crack down on any expression by members of the Muslim minority of Xinjiang to assert their ethnic character or promote an independent state.
China’s Area of Darkness - Book Review
James Millward’s book is the first comprehensive study of Xinjiang, including its geography and prehistory, in English. This vast region in Eurasia has long been the setting for thousands of armed men, some Chinese, most others not, trying and failing to dominate a culturally mixed region the size of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain combined.
China: Execution of Uighurs brings total to four in three weeks
Two more Uighurs have been executed in northwest China for political offences, according to news agency reports.
China Jails Uyghur Journalist For "Separatism"
A court in the Muslim Uyghur region of Xinjiang in northwest China has jailed a journalist who reported on political tensions there for separatist activities and leaking state secrets overseas, RFA's Uyghur service reports.
China Links Terrorism and Drugs in War on Uyghur Groups
Chinese authorities have stepped up a campaign to eradicate pro-independence activists among its Muslim Uyghur minority, targeting "terrorists" and drug-traffickers in the name of the War on Terror, RFA's Uyghur service reports.
Uighurs fleeing persecution as China wages its “war on terror”
The first section of this report gives an overview of the human rights situation in the XUAR. It describes the cases of two Uighur prisoners of conscience who continue to be imprisoned, despite repeated calls for their release from other governments, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations. The second section describes the plight of Uighurs in other countries, including those who apply for asylum.
Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent
This paper analyzes the sources of Uyghur discontent and ethnonational conflict in Xinjiang since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.