The Uyghur Civil Rights Movement: No Uyghurs in our Hotel
Terrorists squirreled away in mountain hideouts, the Uyghur chairman spouting fire and brimstone at the podium, a teenaged, female mujahideen attempting to start a blaze as intense as her own fanatic fervor in an airplane lavatory, a fragmented Uyghur diaspora desperate for a means to bring about momentous change - Xinjiang, from its history to its current events to its very geography is a place of extremes, and when you get caught in the whirlwind it becomes a little too easy to forget and overlook some of the more discrete activities whirring in the background that may, in the end, bring about more change than the sensational headliners. It is with that sort of understanding that The New Dominion has occasionally in the past focused on the thoughts and comments scattered throughout the web, in English, Uyghur, and Chinese, of “people on the ground,” or as the Chinese put it, the 老百姓, the hundred old names. Sometimes we’re tempted away (justifiably!) by really hard-hitting stuff which came in batches before, during, and right after the Olympics, but recently an extremely intriguing article has been brought to my attention which hopefully will put things a little more into perspective as the Olympic Heat gets subsumed by the coming winter. It starts simply, with a notice posted on a hotel wall in Beijing, which was photographed and posted online.
Notice for hotels to register Uyghur and Tibetan lodgers with the police
Urgent Notice
To all inns and bathhouses of the administrative district:
In compliance with a request from the local PSB substation, starting today, investigations will be carried out on the lodging circumstances of all individuals of “Tibetan” and “Uyghur” ethnicity residing at inns and bathhouses of the Haidian District. Reinforce inspection and verification of any lodger matching the description above and report all cases to the local dispatch station.
Furthermore: every inn and bathhouse, when registering travelers, must double-check and accurately fill out the registration form.
All who receive Tibetan or Uyghur individuals for lodging must immediately report to the local dispatch station.
Officer to Contact: Wu Hu Cell Phone: 13801093916
Huayuan Dispatch Station On-Call Phone Numbers: 62014692 62032656
Minority individuals from “sensitive” regions being monitored in hotels is not something new - as far back as July, before the Olympics, there was a news report by Globe and Mail about how the unfortunate parties to a forced, mass Uyghur exodus from Beijing were invariably denied access to an inn or hotel after pulling out their ID cards identifying them as Uyghurs. And while the link above with the photograph of the notice was published on the 3rd of October, it’s unclear whether or not the picture itself was taken recently or long ago. Nonetheless, standing on its own the picture does at least constitute a form of evidence for this type of ethnic discrimination a tad more concrete than word of mouth.
But the notice does remind us that one often overlooked aspect of “being a Uyghur in the PRC” is the civil rights component. I identify this in contrast to aspects that gain greater coverage on media outlets, things like terrorism and separatism, or, the “humanitarian crisis” which I feel overlaps with civil rights issues but are usually more egregious yet more targeted violations of minority rights - for example, religious restrictions during Ramadan, or forced deportation of young Uyghur girls to Eastern industrial areas for labor. While these crises are absolutely worth knowing and analyzing, it’s also worth recalling that sometimes its the smaller troubles with a wider range that trigger greater consequences - the uncalled for nuisances that are capable of affecting all Uyghurs, regardless of whether or not they are man or woman, religious or secular, rich or poor, young or old. Something inexplicably, illogically, and absolutely tied to something as inconsequential as the way you look or a character on your ID card. Like these hotel restrictions.
I can’t help but consider the a similar situation that I became familiar with as a child of the US - namely, the American Civil Rights movement. Just for all you internet critics out there, I underline similar and do not say analagous, because they are not. But I think that on a generalized level there are some comparisons that can be made. For example, while during that time there were frequent and brazen acts of terrorism perpetuated against blacks in the South, most notably and gruesomely vigilante lynching, it was an act of resistance against a far more mundane yet more ubiquitous injustice that today represents the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement - Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus.
Rosa Parks also reminds us that offenses against an individual’s civil rights does not a Civil Rights Movement make. It takes two other things: one, an understanding by the minority community of what these violations are, how they operate, and where they come from, and, two, a willingness to speak and act out against those violations.
And so I was a little surprised and intrigued that in the link posted above, the one publishing the photograph of the police notice, there also were some reactions and commentary written in Mandarin by other Uyghur members of the Uighur Biz online community. I say surprised because Uighur Biz is a site based in China, written in Mandarin, and, like all sites in China, has registered an ICP license with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Despite this, community members have voiced some insightful, penetrating, and surprisingly frank comments on the discriminatory hotel policy, its implications, and its origins, to which I turn to in an article that will be posted shortly.
Source
Monday, October 20, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
China tightens grip on Muslims in Xinjiang
China tightens grip on Muslims in Xinjiang
Nothing earth shattering but this is an interesting read. Communism vs Islam – you have to love the irony - two systems designed to crush the spirit of individualism and enforce strict obedience to doctrine are incompatible with each other.
By Edward Wong, 19 October, 2008, The International Herald tribune
KHOTAN, China: Fearing separatism in Xinjiang, Beijing aims to control Islam
The grand mosque that draws thousands of Muslims each week in this oasis town has all the usual trappings of piety: dusty wool carpets on which to kneel in prayer, a row of turbans and skullcaps for men without headwear, a wall niche facing the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian desert.
But large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.
The imam’s sermon at Friday prayers must run no longer than a half-hour, the rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.
One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people may not be “forced” to attend services at the mosque - a generous wording of a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from going at all.
“Of course this makes people angry,” said a teacher in the mosque courtyard, who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government retribution. “Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be allowed to pray.”
To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with Chinese rule.
-The Uighurs have to be careful, The Chinese Government could simply outlaw islam and destroy the mosques and arrest practitioners.
The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim’s way of life. Official versions of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.
Two of Islam’s five pillars - the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj - are also carefully controlled. Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on their own.
Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead to a firing.
The Chinese government, which is officially atheist, recognizes five religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism and Buddhism - and tightly regulates their administration and practice.
Its oversight in Xinjiang, though, is especially vigilant because it worries about separatist activity in the region.
Some officials contend that insurgent groups in Xinjiang pose one of the biggest security threats to China, and the government says the “three forces” of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism threaten to destabilize the region. But outside scholars of Xinjiang and terrorism experts argue that heavy-handed tactics like the restrictions on Islam will only radicalize more Uighurs.
Many of the rules have been on the books for years, but some local governments in Xinjiang have publicly highlighted them in the past seven weeks by posting the laws on Web sites or hanging banners in towns.
Those moves coincided with Ramadan, which ran from September to early October, and came on the heels of a series of attacks in August that left at least 22 security officers and one civilian dead, according to official reports. The deadliest attack was a murky ambush in Kashgar that witnesses said involved men in police uniforms fighting each other.
The attacks were the biggest wave of violence in Xinjiang since the 1990s. In recent months, Wang Lequan, the long-serving party secretary of Xinjiang, and Nuer Baikeli, the chairman of the region, have given hard-line speeches indicating that a crackdown will soon begin.
Wang said the government was engaged in a “life or death” struggle in Xinjiang. Baikeli signaled that government control of religious activities would tighten, asserting that “the religious issue has been the barometer of stability in Xinjiang.”
Anti-China forces in the West and separatist forces are trying to carry out “illegal religious activities and agitate religious fever,” he said, and “the field of religion has become an increasingly important battlefield against enemies.”
Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, accounting for 46 percent of the population of 19 million. Many say that Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, discriminate against them based on the most obvious differences between the groups: language and religion.
The Uighurs began adopting Sunni Islam in the 10th century, although patterns of belief vary widely, and the religion has enjoyed a surge of popularity after the harshest decades of Communist rule.
According to government statistics, there are 24,000 mosques and 29,000 religious leaders in Xinjiang. Muslim piety is especially strong in old Silk Road towns in the south like Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan.
Many Han Chinese see Islam as the root of social problems in Xinjiang.
-So do I
“The Uighurs are lazy,” said a man who runs a construction business in Kashgar and would give only his last name, Zhao, because of the political delicacy of the topic.
“It’s because of their religion,” he said. “They spend so much time praying. What are they praying for?”
The government restrictions are posted inside mosques and elsewhere across Xinjiang. In particular, officials take great pains to publicize the law prohibiting Muslims from arranging their own trips for the hajj. Signs painted on mud-brick walls in the winding alleyways of old Kashgar warn against making illegal pilgrimages. A red banner hanging on a large mosque in the Uighur area of Urumqi, the regional capital, says, “Implement the policy of organized and planned pilgrimage; individual pilgrimage is forbidden.”
As dozens of worshipers streamed into the mosque for prayer on a recent evening, one Uighur man pointed to the sign and shook his head. “We didn’t write that,” he said in broken Chinese. “They wrote that.”
He turned his finger to a white neon sign above the building that simply said “mosque” in Arabic script. “We wrote that,” he said.
Like other Uighurs interviewed for this article, he agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be used for fear of retribution by the authorities.
The government gives various reasons for controlling the hajj. Officials say that the Saudi Arabian government is concerned about crowded conditions in Mecca that have led to fatal tramplings, and that Muslims who leave China on their own sometimes spend too much money on the pilgrimage.
Critics say the government is trying to restrict the movements of Uighurs and prevent them from coming into contact with other Muslims, fearing that such exchanges could build a pan-Islamic identity in Xinjiang.
About two years ago, the government began confiscating the passports of Uighurs across the region, angering many people here. Now virtually no Uighurs have passports, though they can apply for them for short trips. The new restriction has made life especially difficult for businessmen who travel to neighboring countries.
To get a passport to go on an official hajj tour or a business trip, applicants must leave a deposit of nearly $6,000.
One man in Kashgar said the imam at his mosque, who like all official imams is paid by the government, had recently been urging congregants to go to Mecca only with legal tours.
That is not easy for many Uighurs. The cost of an official trip is the equivalent of $3,700, and hefty bribes usually raise the price.
Once a person files an application, the authorities do a background check of the family. If the applicant has children, the children must be old enough to be financially self-sufficient, and the applicant is required to show that he or she has substantial savings in the bank. Officials say these conditions ensure that a hajj trip will not leave the family impoverished.
Rules posted last year on the Xinjiang government’s Web site say the applicant must be 50 to 70 years old, “love the country and obey the law.”
The number of applicants far outnumbers the slots available each year, and the wait is at least a year. But the government has been raising the cap. Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that from 2006 to 2007, more than 3,100 Muslims from Xinjiang went on the official hajj, up from 2,000 the previous year.
One young Uighur man in Kashgar said his parents were pushing their children to get married soon so they could prove the children were financially independent, thus allowing them to qualify to go on the hajj. “Their greatest wish is to go to Mecca once,” the man, who wished to be identified only as Abdullah, said over dinner.
But the family has to weigh another factor: the father, now retired, was once a government employee and a Communist Party member, so he might very well lose his pension if he went on the hajj, Abdullah said.
The rules on fasting during Ramadan are just as strict. Several local governments began posting the regulations on their Web sites last month. They vary by town and county but include requiring restaurants to stay open during daylight hours and mandating that women not wear veils and men shave their beards.
Enforcement can be haphazard. In Kashgar, many Uighur restaurants remained closed during the fasting hours. “The religion is too strong in Kashgar,” said one man. “There are rules, but people don’t follow them.”
One rule that officials in some towns seem especially intent on enforcing is the ban on students’ fasting. Supporters of this policy say students need to eat to study properly.
The local university in Kashgar adheres to the policy. Starting last year, it tried to force students to eat during the day by prohibiting them from leaving campus in the evening to join their families in breaking the daily fast. Residents of Kashgar say the university locked the gates and put glass shards along the top of a campus wall.
After a few weeks, the school built a higher wall.
Huang Yuanxi contributed research.
Source
Nothing earth shattering but this is an interesting read. Communism vs Islam – you have to love the irony - two systems designed to crush the spirit of individualism and enforce strict obedience to doctrine are incompatible with each other.
By Edward Wong, 19 October, 2008, The International Herald tribune
KHOTAN, China: Fearing separatism in Xinjiang, Beijing aims to control Islam
The grand mosque that draws thousands of Muslims each week in this oasis town has all the usual trappings of piety: dusty wool carpets on which to kneel in prayer, a row of turbans and skullcaps for men without headwear, a wall niche facing the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian desert.
But large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.
The imam’s sermon at Friday prayers must run no longer than a half-hour, the rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.
One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people may not be “forced” to attend services at the mosque - a generous wording of a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from going at all.
“Of course this makes people angry,” said a teacher in the mosque courtyard, who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government retribution. “Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be allowed to pray.”
To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with Chinese rule.
-The Uighurs have to be careful, The Chinese Government could simply outlaw islam and destroy the mosques and arrest practitioners.
The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim’s way of life. Official versions of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.
Two of Islam’s five pillars - the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj - are also carefully controlled. Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on their own.
Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead to a firing.
The Chinese government, which is officially atheist, recognizes five religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism and Buddhism - and tightly regulates their administration and practice.
Its oversight in Xinjiang, though, is especially vigilant because it worries about separatist activity in the region.
Some officials contend that insurgent groups in Xinjiang pose one of the biggest security threats to China, and the government says the “three forces” of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism threaten to destabilize the region. But outside scholars of Xinjiang and terrorism experts argue that heavy-handed tactics like the restrictions on Islam will only radicalize more Uighurs.
Many of the rules have been on the books for years, but some local governments in Xinjiang have publicly highlighted them in the past seven weeks by posting the laws on Web sites or hanging banners in towns.
Those moves coincided with Ramadan, which ran from September to early October, and came on the heels of a series of attacks in August that left at least 22 security officers and one civilian dead, according to official reports. The deadliest attack was a murky ambush in Kashgar that witnesses said involved men in police uniforms fighting each other.
The attacks were the biggest wave of violence in Xinjiang since the 1990s. In recent months, Wang Lequan, the long-serving party secretary of Xinjiang, and Nuer Baikeli, the chairman of the region, have given hard-line speeches indicating that a crackdown will soon begin.
Wang said the government was engaged in a “life or death” struggle in Xinjiang. Baikeli signaled that government control of religious activities would tighten, asserting that “the religious issue has been the barometer of stability in Xinjiang.”
Anti-China forces in the West and separatist forces are trying to carry out “illegal religious activities and agitate religious fever,” he said, and “the field of religion has become an increasingly important battlefield against enemies.”
Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, accounting for 46 percent of the population of 19 million. Many say that Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, discriminate against them based on the most obvious differences between the groups: language and religion.
The Uighurs began adopting Sunni Islam in the 10th century, although patterns of belief vary widely, and the religion has enjoyed a surge of popularity after the harshest decades of Communist rule.
According to government statistics, there are 24,000 mosques and 29,000 religious leaders in Xinjiang. Muslim piety is especially strong in old Silk Road towns in the south like Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan.
Many Han Chinese see Islam as the root of social problems in Xinjiang.
-So do I
“The Uighurs are lazy,” said a man who runs a construction business in Kashgar and would give only his last name, Zhao, because of the political delicacy of the topic.
“It’s because of their religion,” he said. “They spend so much time praying. What are they praying for?”
The government restrictions are posted inside mosques and elsewhere across Xinjiang. In particular, officials take great pains to publicize the law prohibiting Muslims from arranging their own trips for the hajj. Signs painted on mud-brick walls in the winding alleyways of old Kashgar warn against making illegal pilgrimages. A red banner hanging on a large mosque in the Uighur area of Urumqi, the regional capital, says, “Implement the policy of organized and planned pilgrimage; individual pilgrimage is forbidden.”
As dozens of worshipers streamed into the mosque for prayer on a recent evening, one Uighur man pointed to the sign and shook his head. “We didn’t write that,” he said in broken Chinese. “They wrote that.”
He turned his finger to a white neon sign above the building that simply said “mosque” in Arabic script. “We wrote that,” he said.
Like other Uighurs interviewed for this article, he agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be used for fear of retribution by the authorities.
The government gives various reasons for controlling the hajj. Officials say that the Saudi Arabian government is concerned about crowded conditions in Mecca that have led to fatal tramplings, and that Muslims who leave China on their own sometimes spend too much money on the pilgrimage.
Critics say the government is trying to restrict the movements of Uighurs and prevent them from coming into contact with other Muslims, fearing that such exchanges could build a pan-Islamic identity in Xinjiang.
About two years ago, the government began confiscating the passports of Uighurs across the region, angering many people here. Now virtually no Uighurs have passports, though they can apply for them for short trips. The new restriction has made life especially difficult for businessmen who travel to neighboring countries.
To get a passport to go on an official hajj tour or a business trip, applicants must leave a deposit of nearly $6,000.
One man in Kashgar said the imam at his mosque, who like all official imams is paid by the government, had recently been urging congregants to go to Mecca only with legal tours.
That is not easy for many Uighurs. The cost of an official trip is the equivalent of $3,700, and hefty bribes usually raise the price.
Once a person files an application, the authorities do a background check of the family. If the applicant has children, the children must be old enough to be financially self-sufficient, and the applicant is required to show that he or she has substantial savings in the bank. Officials say these conditions ensure that a hajj trip will not leave the family impoverished.
Rules posted last year on the Xinjiang government’s Web site say the applicant must be 50 to 70 years old, “love the country and obey the law.”
The number of applicants far outnumbers the slots available each year, and the wait is at least a year. But the government has been raising the cap. Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that from 2006 to 2007, more than 3,100 Muslims from Xinjiang went on the official hajj, up from 2,000 the previous year.
One young Uighur man in Kashgar said his parents were pushing their children to get married soon so they could prove the children were financially independent, thus allowing them to qualify to go on the hajj. “Their greatest wish is to go to Mecca once,” the man, who wished to be identified only as Abdullah, said over dinner.
But the family has to weigh another factor: the father, now retired, was once a government employee and a Communist Party member, so he might very well lose his pension if he went on the hajj, Abdullah said.
The rules on fasting during Ramadan are just as strict. Several local governments began posting the regulations on their Web sites last month. They vary by town and county but include requiring restaurants to stay open during daylight hours and mandating that women not wear veils and men shave their beards.
Enforcement can be haphazard. In Kashgar, many Uighur restaurants remained closed during the fasting hours. “The religion is too strong in Kashgar,” said one man. “There are rules, but people don’t follow them.”
One rule that officials in some towns seem especially intent on enforcing is the ban on students’ fasting. Supporters of this policy say students need to eat to study properly.
The local university in Kashgar adheres to the policy. Starting last year, it tried to force students to eat during the day by prohibiting them from leaving campus in the evening to join their families in breaking the daily fast. Residents of Kashgar say the university locked the gates and put glass shards along the top of a campus wall.
After a few weeks, the school built a higher wall.
Huang Yuanxi contributed research.
Source
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
China's story: putting the PR into the PRC
China's story: putting the PR into the PRC
James A Millward
Beijing is the target of world criticism over its Olympic preparations and its Tibet and Xinjiang policies. It needs a better public-relations response, says James A Millward.
18 - 04 - 2008
The tragicomic Olympic-torch tour presents the world with a serious problem. While the west has focused on the chaotic and even amusing aspects (French police on roller-blades, Chinese torch-guards in dark shades on a cloudy day), in China the iconic image is of the young female paralympic fencer Jin Jing struggling to hold the torch from her wheelchair while a grimacing free-Tibet protestor attempts to wrest it from her grasp. As with the Tibetan protests generally, people in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the world at large see the events of the torch tour in radically different ways.
James A Millward is professor of history at Georgetown University. Among his books is Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang
(C Hurst, 2007) A similar disconnect characterises recent Chinese announcements of foiled terrorist plots by Uighurs, the Turkic Muslims from China's Xinjiang region. Several official reports - regarding a raid on an alleged terror cell in Urumqi in January 2008, an attempt by a young Uighur woman and a man to bring down an airliner in March, and Uighur plans to attack tourist hotels and kidnap foreign journalists in April - have all met with scepticism by foreign media and analysts, infuriating Chinese authorities.
Despite unprecedented information interchange, despite more than two decades of Chinese openness to and deep economic integration with the world, and despite the promise of the Olympic moment, there is now a situation in which world public opinion, and that in China, are diametrically opposed. To oversimplify just a bit, the world public views the Chinese as ogres bent on crushing Tibetans, Uighurs, Darfurians, Christians and others. The Chinese public thinks the world is out to get them, and that the west just wants to keep China down.
Chinese censorship and propaganda - starting with the history and civics Chinese children study in school - has a lot to do with Chinese popular attitudes, and arguably the opinion gap would be narrower if information flowed more freely in China. But people outside China are likewise generally poorly-educated about Chinese issues, albeit for different reasons, and their responses to events such as the Tibet demonstrations are similarly shaped by misinformation and emotion.
It does no one any good if China and the rest of the world are separated by this chasm of mutual misunderstanding, the effects of which could linger well after the Olympics are over. It avails little simply to enjoin the Chinese government to tear down its information firewall or teach Chinese schoolchildren a fuller version of Chinese history. Like most criticism at this juncture, this will only seem like piling on the anti-China attacks.
Oddly enough, however, much could be gained if China only learned how to do a better job talking to outsiders about China. China has a plausible rationale for its actions, and need neither look like a bully nor feel beleaguered. But when it comes to public relations, the Chinese authorities - and some increasingly angry Chinese students studying abroad - are their own worst enemy.
On message
Here, then, are six suggestions for how China could better represent itself internationally. The benefit of adopting them (in advance of any advice from aside from any new public-relations advisers the Beijing government may hire) would be to reduce misconceptions and tension all around.
▪ Remember that what you say to a Chinese audience is heard by the world audience
Until recently, Chinese authorities viewed even local Chinese newspapers as "internal circulation" media which a billion-plus Chinese, but not foreigners, were allowed to read. Those days are over. Since broadcasts, newspapers and everything else are now online, and lots of foreigners understand Chinese, Chinese domestic news gets out. Even stories that are squelched in China get out. It is a cliché, but true, that we live in one media universe.
▪ Consider how your statements sound in English
Diatribes by hardline leaders may be aimed to satisfy a domestic Chinese audience, but such rhetoric sounds violent, even hysterical, when translated and broadcast in English. Zhang Qingli, first party secretary in Tibet, infamously called the Dalai Lama a "terrorist"; Xinjiang's first secretary Wang Lequan shouted at a press conference on 9 March 2008 that "those terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter who they are!" It would have worked better if he simply said "stopped," or "apprehended": words like "battered" or "crushed" merely contribute to the impression that the Chinese government is inherently violent. (True, President Bush often sounds the same way, with his cowboy swagger - but here I rest my case. His world image is nothing to emulate.)
Also, be aware that many Chinese slogans sound quaint, or worse, in English. "The Three Evil Forces" is one example, "the Dalai Lama Clique," another. And don't call it "splittism"! That word, probably originating in a poor translation, is used only in the Chinese context, mainly by the Chinese government's English-language media. "Separatism" means the same thing, but is the term used when similar situations plague other nations.
▪ Don't employ ancient or strained historical arguments about territorial questions
What the PRC is most concerned about regarding Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan is sovereignty. However, no government in the world today, and none of any consequence ever, has challenged PRC sovereignty in Tibet or Xinjiang. Even the main exile Tibetan and Uighur groups have dropped their calls for independent states, focusing now on "autonomy" and cultural preservation. With regard to Taiwan, the world has patiently followed the "one China" line and awaits resolution of the problem by people on both sides of the straits.
There is simply no need to justify policies in Tibet with the information that a medieval Tibetan king married a Chinese princess. People in the Americas, certainly, don't care about things that happened that long ago, and most people outside China see the princess argument as frankly silly. The British royal family is of German ancestry, but does that mean Berlin owns London? And there will always be a historian to point out that after welcoming the Chinese princess in the 7th century, the Tibetans went on to sack the Chinese capital in the 8th: thus royal marriage hardly proves Tibetan subjection to China.
Likewise, to argue that the Mongols, who conquered both China and Tibet, were really Chinese, so that Mongol rule over Tibet in the 13th century was actually Chinese rule, is a convoluted and easily challenged argument. The same is true for claims that Xinjiang has been part of China since antiquity, claims that ignore the thousand-year gap (from the 8th to the 18th century) when there was no Chinese presence whatsoever in the area (see Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang [C Hurst, 2007]).
▪ Do consider more recent and more realistic historical precedents
The Qing dynasty, on the other hand, especially in the 18th century, provides precedents and models that could be useful, both for public relations and for the actual resolution of separatist problems. The Qing was an era when Beijing either governed or enjoyed some sort of security oversight in Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Taiwan as well as in the core provinces of China. Very different administrative systems applied to different places, however, and the empire was characterised by a remarkable tolerance for linguistic, cultural and religious diversity.
Also in openDemocracy on Tibetan protests and China's response:
Ugen, "Tibet's postal protest"
(4 November 2005)
Jamyang Norbu, "Tibetan tales: old myths, new realities" (13 June 2005)
openDemocracy / Tenzin Tzundue, "Tibet vs China: a human-rights showdown"
(15 August 2006)
Gabriel Lafitte, "Tibet: revolt with memories" (18 March 2008)
Jeffrey N Wasserstrom, "The perils of forced modernity: China-Tibet, America-Iraq"
(27 March 2008)
Donald S Lopez, "How to think about Tibet"
(28 March 2008)
George Fitzherbert, "Tibet's history, China's power"
(28 March 2008)
Dibyesh Anand, "Tibet, China, and the west: empires of the mind" (1 April 2008)
Robert Barnett, "Tibet: questions of revolt" (4 April 2008)
Wenran Jiang, "Tibetan unrest, Chinese lens"
(7 April 2008)
Ivy Wang, "China's netizens and Tibet: a Guangzhou report"
(8 April 2008)
Wang Lixiong, "China and Tibet: the true path" (15 April 2008)
openDemocracy, "Chinese intellectuals and Tibet: a letter" (15 April 2008)
In the 1950s, too, the People's Republic of China launched a system that in principle, if not in practice, provided autonomy and cultural preservation for non-Han minorities. Today, amidst so much talk of transnationalism and the search for new models to complement the nation-state system, there is a global need for new approaches to the ideological and political challenges posed by multi-ethnic states. China could well look "back to the future" and with historical honesty and genuine national pride draw upon Qing dynasty or even early PRC precedents to craft creative solutions to questions of autonomy and cultural preservation in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere. Why not help fix the problems of the western-inspired nation-state with Chinese-inspired ideas? Workable Chinese models might even be adopted by other countries.
▪ Don't deny that China has problems; instead, see how they resemble those of other countries
Though China is unique in its scale, what country does not have problems with pollution, corruption or managing the balance between economic growth and welfare for the poorest members of society? Even the disputes with Tibetans and Uighurs, while stemming from Chinese historical circumstances, have parallels elsewhere. Ethno-religious diversity poses challenges in Europe, America, Australia, and other western democracies. India has serious separatist problems, likewise stemming from an imperial legacy. But despite some heavy-handed tactics, India does not suffer the kind of international criticism over its approaches to Assam or even Kashmir that China does over Tibet or Xinjiang. One reason for that difference is Indian openness and the wide-ranging discussion of these issues in its own lively press.
In late March 2008, hundreds of Muslim Uighur women in the city of Khotan in Xinjiang took to the streets; in part, it seems, because of restrictions on the wearing of headscarves in government offices. Chinese media have not reported on this, but news got out anyway, as it will. If you think it is a good policy to restrict the wearing of headscarves in secular public settings, you are not alone: both Turkey and France have similar policies. So why hide the story? Why not join the global discussion over the place of religious symbols in a multicultural, but officially secular, state? Frank admission and thoughtful consideration of such issues would position China beside other large nations, rather than setting China apart, on its own against the world.
▪ Let reporters report: transparency engenders credibility
Though you may be able to control the message to an extent within China, internationally you suffer from a lack of credibility as a result of censored and propagandistic news. This is why western media are sceptical about claims of the Uighur terrorist threat, or claims that all Tibetans, except for a small handful stirred up by the Dalai Lama, are happy. Covering up the Sars outbreak was a serious blow to China's public relations worldwide - much worse than the fact of the outbreak itself was.
On the other hand, China's relatively open and cooperative responses to safety problems in exported toys, medicines and other products have helped limit the damage to the Chinese "brand" following these revelations. Believing your own propaganda may worsen your problems: it certainly seems that central Chinese authorities had no idea of the depth and scope of Tibetan discontent before it erupted in March.
On the other hand, China's relatively open and cooperative responses to safety problems in exported toys, medicines and other products have helped limit the damage to the Chinese "brand" following these revelations. Propaganda and message-control thus can provide a certain short-term benefit; but the truth will out, and real knowledge affords real power. So if you listen to, rather than excluding and demonising, journalists and scholars, both domestic and foreign, China will be better off and will enjoy greater respect from the world at large.
Be cool, Beijing
All these six points can be summed up more succinctly:
▪ Be confident and honest, not defensive and secretive
The outright denials of the obvious, the virulent rhetoric, the strained historical arguments, the paranoid claims that foreigners cause your problems - all make China look bad. And China does not need to look bad. Moreover, the world needs China not to look bad. China has a great deal to be proud and confident of, with an unprecedented record of poverty alleviation, phenomenal economic growth, glittering new architecture, high-levels of education, a space programme, trillions in foreign reserves, a savings rate that is the envy of spendthrift Americans, and what is likely to be a rich harvest of Olympic gold - not to mention a long history and glorious culture.
Sure, China has problems - who doesn't? But no one is going to take Tibet or Xinjiang away from China. If you respond to disturbances in these regions with restraint, with a statesmanlike air "more in sadness than in anger", and demonstrate an interest in attempting to resolve, rather than deny, the economic, cultural and political problems underlying these disturbances, you could earn world understanding and sympathy rather than looking like a bully.
Finally, protect Jin Jing and other Chinese torch-bearers, but otherwise call off that "people's armed police" squad guarding the Olympic torch (see Rowan Callick, "Torch guardians from Tibet crackdown unit", The Australian, 16 April 2008). Let the International Olympic Committee worry about security for its own sacred flame, and let foreign cops wrestle with the foreign protestors attacking foreign torch-bearers - unless you actually want more pictures of Chinese beating up demonstrators splashed all over world media. At the very least, have the guards take off those thuggish sunglasses!
Source
James A Millward
Beijing is the target of world criticism over its Olympic preparations and its Tibet and Xinjiang policies. It needs a better public-relations response, says James A Millward.
18 - 04 - 2008
The tragicomic Olympic-torch tour presents the world with a serious problem. While the west has focused on the chaotic and even amusing aspects (French police on roller-blades, Chinese torch-guards in dark shades on a cloudy day), in China the iconic image is of the young female paralympic fencer Jin Jing struggling to hold the torch from her wheelchair while a grimacing free-Tibet protestor attempts to wrest it from her grasp. As with the Tibetan protests generally, people in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the world at large see the events of the torch tour in radically different ways.
James A Millward is professor of history at Georgetown University. Among his books is Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang
(C Hurst, 2007) A similar disconnect characterises recent Chinese announcements of foiled terrorist plots by Uighurs, the Turkic Muslims from China's Xinjiang region. Several official reports - regarding a raid on an alleged terror cell in Urumqi in January 2008, an attempt by a young Uighur woman and a man to bring down an airliner in March, and Uighur plans to attack tourist hotels and kidnap foreign journalists in April - have all met with scepticism by foreign media and analysts, infuriating Chinese authorities.
Despite unprecedented information interchange, despite more than two decades of Chinese openness to and deep economic integration with the world, and despite the promise of the Olympic moment, there is now a situation in which world public opinion, and that in China, are diametrically opposed. To oversimplify just a bit, the world public views the Chinese as ogres bent on crushing Tibetans, Uighurs, Darfurians, Christians and others. The Chinese public thinks the world is out to get them, and that the west just wants to keep China down.
Chinese censorship and propaganda - starting with the history and civics Chinese children study in school - has a lot to do with Chinese popular attitudes, and arguably the opinion gap would be narrower if information flowed more freely in China. But people outside China are likewise generally poorly-educated about Chinese issues, albeit for different reasons, and their responses to events such as the Tibet demonstrations are similarly shaped by misinformation and emotion.
It does no one any good if China and the rest of the world are separated by this chasm of mutual misunderstanding, the effects of which could linger well after the Olympics are over. It avails little simply to enjoin the Chinese government to tear down its information firewall or teach Chinese schoolchildren a fuller version of Chinese history. Like most criticism at this juncture, this will only seem like piling on the anti-China attacks.
Oddly enough, however, much could be gained if China only learned how to do a better job talking to outsiders about China. China has a plausible rationale for its actions, and need neither look like a bully nor feel beleaguered. But when it comes to public relations, the Chinese authorities - and some increasingly angry Chinese students studying abroad - are their own worst enemy.
On message
Here, then, are six suggestions for how China could better represent itself internationally. The benefit of adopting them (in advance of any advice from aside from any new public-relations advisers the Beijing government may hire) would be to reduce misconceptions and tension all around.
▪ Remember that what you say to a Chinese audience is heard by the world audience
Until recently, Chinese authorities viewed even local Chinese newspapers as "internal circulation" media which a billion-plus Chinese, but not foreigners, were allowed to read. Those days are over. Since broadcasts, newspapers and everything else are now online, and lots of foreigners understand Chinese, Chinese domestic news gets out. Even stories that are squelched in China get out. It is a cliché, but true, that we live in one media universe.
▪ Consider how your statements sound in English
Diatribes by hardline leaders may be aimed to satisfy a domestic Chinese audience, but such rhetoric sounds violent, even hysterical, when translated and broadcast in English. Zhang Qingli, first party secretary in Tibet, infamously called the Dalai Lama a "terrorist"; Xinjiang's first secretary Wang Lequan shouted at a press conference on 9 March 2008 that "those terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter who they are!" It would have worked better if he simply said "stopped," or "apprehended": words like "battered" or "crushed" merely contribute to the impression that the Chinese government is inherently violent. (True, President Bush often sounds the same way, with his cowboy swagger - but here I rest my case. His world image is nothing to emulate.)
Also, be aware that many Chinese slogans sound quaint, or worse, in English. "The Three Evil Forces" is one example, "the Dalai Lama Clique," another. And don't call it "splittism"! That word, probably originating in a poor translation, is used only in the Chinese context, mainly by the Chinese government's English-language media. "Separatism" means the same thing, but is the term used when similar situations plague other nations.
▪ Don't employ ancient or strained historical arguments about territorial questions
What the PRC is most concerned about regarding Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan is sovereignty. However, no government in the world today, and none of any consequence ever, has challenged PRC sovereignty in Tibet or Xinjiang. Even the main exile Tibetan and Uighur groups have dropped their calls for independent states, focusing now on "autonomy" and cultural preservation. With regard to Taiwan, the world has patiently followed the "one China" line and awaits resolution of the problem by people on both sides of the straits.
There is simply no need to justify policies in Tibet with the information that a medieval Tibetan king married a Chinese princess. People in the Americas, certainly, don't care about things that happened that long ago, and most people outside China see the princess argument as frankly silly. The British royal family is of German ancestry, but does that mean Berlin owns London? And there will always be a historian to point out that after welcoming the Chinese princess in the 7th century, the Tibetans went on to sack the Chinese capital in the 8th: thus royal marriage hardly proves Tibetan subjection to China.
Likewise, to argue that the Mongols, who conquered both China and Tibet, were really Chinese, so that Mongol rule over Tibet in the 13th century was actually Chinese rule, is a convoluted and easily challenged argument. The same is true for claims that Xinjiang has been part of China since antiquity, claims that ignore the thousand-year gap (from the 8th to the 18th century) when there was no Chinese presence whatsoever in the area (see Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang [C Hurst, 2007]).
▪ Do consider more recent and more realistic historical precedents
The Qing dynasty, on the other hand, especially in the 18th century, provides precedents and models that could be useful, both for public relations and for the actual resolution of separatist problems. The Qing was an era when Beijing either governed or enjoyed some sort of security oversight in Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Taiwan as well as in the core provinces of China. Very different administrative systems applied to different places, however, and the empire was characterised by a remarkable tolerance for linguistic, cultural and religious diversity.
Also in openDemocracy on Tibetan protests and China's response:
Ugen, "Tibet's postal protest"
(4 November 2005)
Jamyang Norbu, "Tibetan tales: old myths, new realities" (13 June 2005)
openDemocracy / Tenzin Tzundue, "Tibet vs China: a human-rights showdown"
(15 August 2006)
Gabriel Lafitte, "Tibet: revolt with memories" (18 March 2008)
Jeffrey N Wasserstrom, "The perils of forced modernity: China-Tibet, America-Iraq"
(27 March 2008)
Donald S Lopez, "How to think about Tibet"
(28 March 2008)
George Fitzherbert, "Tibet's history, China's power"
(28 March 2008)
Dibyesh Anand, "Tibet, China, and the west: empires of the mind" (1 April 2008)
Robert Barnett, "Tibet: questions of revolt" (4 April 2008)
Wenran Jiang, "Tibetan unrest, Chinese lens"
(7 April 2008)
Ivy Wang, "China's netizens and Tibet: a Guangzhou report"
(8 April 2008)
Wang Lixiong, "China and Tibet: the true path" (15 April 2008)
openDemocracy, "Chinese intellectuals and Tibet: a letter" (15 April 2008)
In the 1950s, too, the People's Republic of China launched a system that in principle, if not in practice, provided autonomy and cultural preservation for non-Han minorities. Today, amidst so much talk of transnationalism and the search for new models to complement the nation-state system, there is a global need for new approaches to the ideological and political challenges posed by multi-ethnic states. China could well look "back to the future" and with historical honesty and genuine national pride draw upon Qing dynasty or even early PRC precedents to craft creative solutions to questions of autonomy and cultural preservation in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere. Why not help fix the problems of the western-inspired nation-state with Chinese-inspired ideas? Workable Chinese models might even be adopted by other countries.
▪ Don't deny that China has problems; instead, see how they resemble those of other countries
Though China is unique in its scale, what country does not have problems with pollution, corruption or managing the balance between economic growth and welfare for the poorest members of society? Even the disputes with Tibetans and Uighurs, while stemming from Chinese historical circumstances, have parallels elsewhere. Ethno-religious diversity poses challenges in Europe, America, Australia, and other western democracies. India has serious separatist problems, likewise stemming from an imperial legacy. But despite some heavy-handed tactics, India does not suffer the kind of international criticism over its approaches to Assam or even Kashmir that China does over Tibet or Xinjiang. One reason for that difference is Indian openness and the wide-ranging discussion of these issues in its own lively press.
In late March 2008, hundreds of Muslim Uighur women in the city of Khotan in Xinjiang took to the streets; in part, it seems, because of restrictions on the wearing of headscarves in government offices. Chinese media have not reported on this, but news got out anyway, as it will. If you think it is a good policy to restrict the wearing of headscarves in secular public settings, you are not alone: both Turkey and France have similar policies. So why hide the story? Why not join the global discussion over the place of religious symbols in a multicultural, but officially secular, state? Frank admission and thoughtful consideration of such issues would position China beside other large nations, rather than setting China apart, on its own against the world.
▪ Let reporters report: transparency engenders credibility
Though you may be able to control the message to an extent within China, internationally you suffer from a lack of credibility as a result of censored and propagandistic news. This is why western media are sceptical about claims of the Uighur terrorist threat, or claims that all Tibetans, except for a small handful stirred up by the Dalai Lama, are happy. Covering up the Sars outbreak was a serious blow to China's public relations worldwide - much worse than the fact of the outbreak itself was.
On the other hand, China's relatively open and cooperative responses to safety problems in exported toys, medicines and other products have helped limit the damage to the Chinese "brand" following these revelations. Believing your own propaganda may worsen your problems: it certainly seems that central Chinese authorities had no idea of the depth and scope of Tibetan discontent before it erupted in March.
On the other hand, China's relatively open and cooperative responses to safety problems in exported toys, medicines and other products have helped limit the damage to the Chinese "brand" following these revelations. Propaganda and message-control thus can provide a certain short-term benefit; but the truth will out, and real knowledge affords real power. So if you listen to, rather than excluding and demonising, journalists and scholars, both domestic and foreign, China will be better off and will enjoy greater respect from the world at large.
Be cool, Beijing
All these six points can be summed up more succinctly:
▪ Be confident and honest, not defensive and secretive
The outright denials of the obvious, the virulent rhetoric, the strained historical arguments, the paranoid claims that foreigners cause your problems - all make China look bad. And China does not need to look bad. Moreover, the world needs China not to look bad. China has a great deal to be proud and confident of, with an unprecedented record of poverty alleviation, phenomenal economic growth, glittering new architecture, high-levels of education, a space programme, trillions in foreign reserves, a savings rate that is the envy of spendthrift Americans, and what is likely to be a rich harvest of Olympic gold - not to mention a long history and glorious culture.
Sure, China has problems - who doesn't? But no one is going to take Tibet or Xinjiang away from China. If you respond to disturbances in these regions with restraint, with a statesmanlike air "more in sadness than in anger", and demonstrate an interest in attempting to resolve, rather than deny, the economic, cultural and political problems underlying these disturbances, you could earn world understanding and sympathy rather than looking like a bully.
Finally, protect Jin Jing and other Chinese torch-bearers, but otherwise call off that "people's armed police" squad guarding the Olympic torch (see Rowan Callick, "Torch guardians from Tibet crackdown unit", The Australian, 16 April 2008). Let the International Olympic Committee worry about security for its own sacred flame, and let foreign cops wrestle with the foreign protestors attacking foreign torch-bearers - unless you actually want more pictures of Chinese beating up demonstrators splashed all over world media. At the very least, have the guards take off those thuggish sunglasses!
Source
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Editorial: Administration's Guantánamo defeat
Editorial: Administration's Guantánamo defeat
03:26 PM CDT on Thursday, October 9, 2008
Rarely has the detention of individuals at Guantánamo Bay seemed as blatantly unconstitutional as in the case of 17 Chinese Uighur Muslims held there since 2002. A federal judge this week correctly ruled that their indefinite detention is unjustified and unlawful.
Having forcibly brought these men under U.S. jurisdiction, it is now the Bush administration's job to restore their freedom, and it must do so without further delays or excuses. We're talking about fundamental human rights abuses of men who, the government concedes, do not belong in prison.
Where they go next is a government-created quandary that the White House must solve. But one place they cannot continue to remain is Guantánamo.
"After detaining 17 Uighurs [pronounced WEE-gers] in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for almost seven years, free until recently from judicial oversight, I think the moment has arrived for the court to shine the light ... of constitutionality on the reasons for that detention," U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina stated in his ruling Tuesday.
An appeals court has given the administration up to one week to make its best case to overturn the ruling, but the government's prospects are exceedingly weak. An appeals court in June already had ordered one of the 17 to be released because the government stipulated he was not a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and had "never participated in any hostile action against the United States or its allies."
The government acknowledges there are no substantial differences between his case and those of the other 16. As far back as 2003, it said that 10 of the 17 qualified for release. Yet all remain imprisoned because the government can't find anyone to take them.
This case underscores the fragility of the Bush administration's argument for continued detention without trial of 260 Guantánamo detainees. Although a small number are truly dangerous and pose an ongoing threat to U.S. security, hundreds have fallen closer to the situation of the Uighurs: captured in the wrong place at the wrong time, but guilty of no crime and posing no danger to America.
The government acknowledges it has no case for imprisoning the Uighurs but says they must remain at Guantánamo indefinitely until another country accepts them.
That's not good enough by a long shot. And, for the sake of the basic liberties this country is fighting to uphold around the world, it must never be.
Source
03:26 PM CDT on Thursday, October 9, 2008
Rarely has the detention of individuals at Guantánamo Bay seemed as blatantly unconstitutional as in the case of 17 Chinese Uighur Muslims held there since 2002. A federal judge this week correctly ruled that their indefinite detention is unjustified and unlawful.
Having forcibly brought these men under U.S. jurisdiction, it is now the Bush administration's job to restore their freedom, and it must do so without further delays or excuses. We're talking about fundamental human rights abuses of men who, the government concedes, do not belong in prison.
Where they go next is a government-created quandary that the White House must solve. But one place they cannot continue to remain is Guantánamo.
"After detaining 17 Uighurs [pronounced WEE-gers] in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for almost seven years, free until recently from judicial oversight, I think the moment has arrived for the court to shine the light ... of constitutionality on the reasons for that detention," U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina stated in his ruling Tuesday.
An appeals court has given the administration up to one week to make its best case to overturn the ruling, but the government's prospects are exceedingly weak. An appeals court in June already had ordered one of the 17 to be released because the government stipulated he was not a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and had "never participated in any hostile action against the United States or its allies."
The government acknowledges there are no substantial differences between his case and those of the other 16. As far back as 2003, it said that 10 of the 17 qualified for release. Yet all remain imprisoned because the government can't find anyone to take them.
This case underscores the fragility of the Bush administration's argument for continued detention without trial of 260 Guantánamo detainees. Although a small number are truly dangerous and pose an ongoing threat to U.S. security, hundreds have fallen closer to the situation of the Uighurs: captured in the wrong place at the wrong time, but guilty of no crime and posing no danger to America.
The government acknowledges it has no case for imprisoning the Uighurs but says they must remain at Guantánamo indefinitely until another country accepts them.
That's not good enough by a long shot. And, for the sake of the basic liberties this country is fighting to uphold around the world, it must never be.
Source
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
D.C. Area Families Are Ready to Receive Uighur Detainees
D.C. Area Families Are Ready to Receive Uighur Detainees
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; Page A08
When U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina was looking for a place in the United States to send 17 Chinese Muslim detainees he wants released from Guantanamo Bay, the Washington area was an obvious choice. The region is home to the country's largest concentration of refugees from the men's ethnic group, known as Uighurs, and members have promised to help resettle the prisoners.
"Our community said: 'We are here to help. Release them into our custody,' " said Nury Turkel, a Washington aviation lawyer and past president of the Uyghur American Association, a District-based human rights group that uses another spelling of the ethnic group's name. "We have people offering them places to stay, English training, employment. We don't want anyone to think they will be a burden on society."
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Urbina has ordered the men, who have been held at Guantanamo for almost seven years and are no longer considered enemy combatants by the United States, released into the care of 17 volunteer Uighur families by Friday. According to one of the detainees' attorneys, the presence of a local community willing to receive the detainees was key in the judge's decision that they be released on U.S. soil.
"The local Uighur presence is critical," said Susan Baker Manning, an attorney for the detainees. "These men are halfway around the world from their home and their families. They've been held in grinding isolation, many of them in solitary confinement for about a year and half. They are going to need some help."
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking people and the largest ethnic group of the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang, which Uighurs refer to as East Turkistan. The group has long complained of repression by Chinese authorities.
A few Uighurs settled in the Washington area as students in the 1980s, Turkel said. The number of asylum-seekers picked up in the mid-1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and amid increasing political pressure in China. Turkel came as a law student to American University in 1995 and was subsequently granted political asylum.
The refugees, who tend to be college educated, are attracted to the nation's capital because they often remain active in the Uighur cause and other human rights issues.
"They tend to be very political," Turkel said. "They will talk to anyone, the cashier at the grocery store: 'I'm from the northwestern part of China that has been occupied by communist China for 50 years. We've suffered just like the Tibetans, but nobody knows about us because we don't have a Dalai Lama.' That's a common daily conversation, and it's a lot easier to have it here than in Lincoln, Nebraska."
Elshat Hassan, 46, of McLean was a professor of chemical engineering for 15 years in China before he fled with help from the United Nations. He was settled in Buffalo but moved to Virginia after only a few months in 2006.
"I wanted to be with other Uighur people," said Hassan, who has volunteered to host one of the released detainees and plans to cook him a polo, a ceremonial dish of lamb, carrots and rice. After working in a Uighur-owned frame shop for six months, Hassan is now an information technology specialist for Booz Allen Hamilton. "I didn't know anyone when I came, but they all helped me. And now I will help him."
Turkel said the local group is close-knit and active, and the court was crowded yesterday with area Uighurs. They gather several times a year, often at a rented hall at George Mason University, for ethnic celebrations. The largest is Nations Day, Nov. 12, a mix of political seminars and a traditional dance party.
If the legal system delivers the detainees to Washington in the next several weeks, next month's gathering promises to be the biggest ever, Turkel said.
"It will be huge," he said. "Having them released into Washington is more than just having some guys released from prison. It sends a big signal to China."
Source
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; Page A08
When U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina was looking for a place in the United States to send 17 Chinese Muslim detainees he wants released from Guantanamo Bay, the Washington area was an obvious choice. The region is home to the country's largest concentration of refugees from the men's ethnic group, known as Uighurs, and members have promised to help resettle the prisoners.
"Our community said: 'We are here to help. Release them into our custody,' " said Nury Turkel, a Washington aviation lawyer and past president of the Uyghur American Association, a District-based human rights group that uses another spelling of the ethnic group's name. "We have people offering them places to stay, English training, employment. We don't want anyone to think they will be a burden on society."
ad_icon
Urbina has ordered the men, who have been held at Guantanamo for almost seven years and are no longer considered enemy combatants by the United States, released into the care of 17 volunteer Uighur families by Friday. According to one of the detainees' attorneys, the presence of a local community willing to receive the detainees was key in the judge's decision that they be released on U.S. soil.
"The local Uighur presence is critical," said Susan Baker Manning, an attorney for the detainees. "These men are halfway around the world from their home and their families. They've been held in grinding isolation, many of them in solitary confinement for about a year and half. They are going to need some help."
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking people and the largest ethnic group of the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang, which Uighurs refer to as East Turkistan. The group has long complained of repression by Chinese authorities.
A few Uighurs settled in the Washington area as students in the 1980s, Turkel said. The number of asylum-seekers picked up in the mid-1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and amid increasing political pressure in China. Turkel came as a law student to American University in 1995 and was subsequently granted political asylum.
The refugees, who tend to be college educated, are attracted to the nation's capital because they often remain active in the Uighur cause and other human rights issues.
"They tend to be very political," Turkel said. "They will talk to anyone, the cashier at the grocery store: 'I'm from the northwestern part of China that has been occupied by communist China for 50 years. We've suffered just like the Tibetans, but nobody knows about us because we don't have a Dalai Lama.' That's a common daily conversation, and it's a lot easier to have it here than in Lincoln, Nebraska."
Elshat Hassan, 46, of McLean was a professor of chemical engineering for 15 years in China before he fled with help from the United Nations. He was settled in Buffalo but moved to Virginia after only a few months in 2006.
"I wanted to be with other Uighur people," said Hassan, who has volunteered to host one of the released detainees and plans to cook him a polo, a ceremonial dish of lamb, carrots and rice. After working in a Uighur-owned frame shop for six months, Hassan is now an information technology specialist for Booz Allen Hamilton. "I didn't know anyone when I came, but they all helped me. And now I will help him."
Turkel said the local group is close-knit and active, and the court was crowded yesterday with area Uighurs. They gather several times a year, often at a rented hall at George Mason University, for ethnic celebrations. The largest is Nations Day, Nov. 12, a mix of political seminars and a traditional dance party.
If the legal system delivers the detainees to Washington in the next several weeks, next month's gathering promises to be the biggest ever, Turkel said.
"It will be huge," he said. "Having them released into Washington is more than just having some guys released from prison. It sends a big signal to China."
Source
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