Written by Dilnur Reyhan
25 June 2020 18:28 GMT
The city of Ghulja is reputed as a center of Uyghur rebellion, and has, in fact, often been a locus of resistance to Chinese power. Capital of the second independent Republic of East Turkestan from 1944 to 1949, Ghulja boasts many legendary heroes, such as Nuzugum, Sadir the Brave and Ghéni the Brave. That is just part of its identity: the city also claims renowned artists and literary figures such as Lutpulla Mutellip, Zunun Qadiri, Tiyipjan Eliov and Zordon Sabir.
Ghulja is located in Ili, an autonomous district bordering Kazakhstan. Ili was colonized for 10 years at the end of the 19th century by Tsarist Russia and has acted as a gateway for Western influences coming through Russian-speaking Central Asia. It is also the cradle of Uyghur Jadidism, a late 19th-century-early 20th-century renaissance movement led by intellectuals and entrepreneurs who aimed to reform Islam and Turkic Muslim societies as part of a broader modernization drive inspired by Western and Ottoman models. This movement of societal and religious reform played a role in the awakening of Uyhgur society and its struggle against Chinese colonialism and religious obscurantism. This gave rise to the first rebellion in the south of the Uyghur lands, which gave birth to the first Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan which lasted from 1933 to 1934.
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Bibliography of select news reports & academic works
Compiled by Professor Magnus Fiskesjö
The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) has released a new report, Kashgar Coerced: Forced Reconstruction, Exploitation, and Surveillance in the Cradle of Uyghur Culture. The report documents the Chinese government’s campaign to stamp out tangible aspects of Uyghur culture, using the ancient city of Kashgar as the most emblematic case.
The #HearUyghurs Campaign: On April 17, Uyghur diaspora activist Arslan Hidayat launched a new social-media campaign with the hashtag #HearUyghurs. The campaign highlights the trauma experienced by the worldwide Uyghur diaspora.
UHRP’s new report, “Weaponized Passports: The Crisis of Uyghur Statelessness,” documents an ongoing and worsening issue facing Uyghurs abroad, namely refusal to renew passports and denial of access to other documentation by the Chinese government.
The Uyghur Human Rights Project is deeply concerned by alarming new evidence that local residents are starving across the Uyghur homeland.
A new UHRP report analyzes a leaked document revealing ground-level implementation of the Chinese government’s mass detention program targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
China’s Unprecedented Campaign to Eradicate the Faith, Identity and Cultural Heritage of the Uyghur People
Remarks by Omer Kanat at the 15th Annual Reflections on the Holocaust and Genocides, January 26, 2019, Centers for Pluralism