If only there were mobilisation like this for Uyghurs
A remark by Harry’s Place snagged my attention.
The million held?? I hadn’t realized it was that many. So let’s hear from Human Rights Watch [despite their credulity about trans ideology].
Break their lineage, break their roots
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, located in China’s northwest, is the only region in China with a majority Muslim population. The Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other communities in the region are ethnically Turkic. Unlike the majority Han Chinese, who are primarily Chinese speakers, the Turkic population is predominantly Muslim and have their own languages. According to the 2010 census, Uyghurs made up 46 percent and Kazakhs 7 percent of the Xinjiang population.
The Chinese government’s oppression of Turkic Muslims is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years has reached unprecedented levels. As many as a million people have been arbitrarily detained in 300 to 400 facilities,[3] which include “political education” camps, pretrial detention centers, and prisons.[4] Courts have handed down harsh prison sentences without due process, sentencing Turkic Muslims to years in prison merely for sending an Islamic religious recording to a family member or downloading e-books in Uyghur. Detainees and prisoners are subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, cultural and political indoctrination, and forced labor. The oppression continues outside the detention facilities: the Chinese authorities impose on Turkic Muslims a pervasive system of mass surveillance, controls on movement, arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, cultural and religious erasure, and family separation.
There’s a slight ambiguity in “As many as a million people have been detained” – it’s ambiguous in that it’s not clear whether that’s the total over time or at one time. Still, a million people is a million people. It’s interesting what a lot of ink gets spilled about the tragedy of trans people in London and New York, and how little gets spilled about Turkic people in northwest China.
The United States State Department and the parliaments of Canada and the Netherlands have determined that China’s conduct also constitutes genocide under international law. Human Rights Watch has not documented the existence of the necessary genocidal intent at this time. Nonetheless, nothing in this report precludes such a finding and, if such evidence were to emerge, the acts being committed against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang—a group protected by the 1948 Genocide Convention—could also support a finding of genocide.
And by “genocide” HRW here clearly does not mean twanzfobeea, it means mass murder.
As part of regional authorities’ intrusive “Becoming Families” surveillance, development, and indoctrination campaign, officials impose themselves for overnight stays at the homes of Turkic Muslims, a practice that authorities say “promote[s] ethnic unity.” In another particularly chilling practice, some Turkic Muslim children whose parents have been arbitrarily detained are placed in state institutions such as orphanages and boarding schools, including boarding preschools.
That sounds familiar. Indigenous people in the US and Canada also had their children torn away from them and imprisoned in boarding schools.
Anyway, never mind all that, just focus on Roger here who really needs you to call him Florence.
What a bizarre, rudderless protest. Let’s yell about random businesses in the area near where we happen to have assembled raaaaaaaah!
Cultural genocide is just not sexy even though it’s literally the thing that is the new root of all evil i.e. colonialism. Now violence, that’s sexy, especially if it’s against women. Jewish women – that’s a twofer.
You’ve also got to remember that while Hamas has a pretty good PR apparatus, there’s evidence China is putting a thumb on the scale for them. When it comes to the Uyghurs China can just absolutely bury them at home and abroad via the influence of the world’s biggest market (might be India by now, not sure) and actual malfeasance through TikTok and other means.
Cultural genocide has its place; just ask people of Deafness about “cultural genocide” and why we ought not be aiming to correct disabilities.
The Uyghurs are getting disarmed disheartened & delivered.
I wonder if some high level members of the CPC read Larry Niven’s organ bank problem stories, and saw them as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale.