China 2024: The Smothered Screams of Muslim Genocide

August 31, 2024 | Cultural Property News | By Kate Fitz Gibbon

2021 study by the Uyghur Human Rights Project details how over 300 noted intellectual and cultural producers including folklore expert Dr. Rahile Dawut, former Xinjiang University President and noted geographer Tashpolat Teyip, Medical University President Halmurat Ghopur, poet Addujagir Jalaleddin, and pop singer Ablajan Ayup have all disappeared into the camps and prisons.[9] So have the linguist Arslan Abdulla, and the folklorist Abdukerim Rahman. Editors of previously approved textbooks on Uyghur history have been given life sentences and “suspended” death sentences for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “fabricating separatist materials.

The U.S. based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) reports 3,814 Turkic people jailed per 100,000 in Xinjiang from 2017 to 2022, compared to 80 Han Chinese per 100,000. This is by far the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. It dwarfs that of El Salvador, previously known for its high imprisonment rate of 1,086 per 100,000 citizens.

Researcher Peter Irwin’s 2021 survey for UHRP revealed that at least 1,000 imams and mullahs have been detained since 2014. This is likely a significant undercount, as internal police documents from Urumqi show hundreds more religious figures detained. These detentions were often justified by citing to illegal religious activities or euphemisms like “disturbing social order” or “extremism.”

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