China Expands its Vicious Crackdown on Islam to Hui Muslims
Published by CJ Werleman Independent, a crowdfunded and independent investigative journalism project that seeks to expose and end injustices against Muslims around the world. Please SUPPORT his fight against injustice and the Islamophobia Industry by clicking HERE.
In November 2017, internationally recognized Uyghur Muslim comedian traveled from his home in China to visit his daughter and son-in-law in Istanbul, Turkey. But as the end of his trip neared, his family begged him to stay, fearful of what might await as a result of the Chinese government’s crackdown on 12 million ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, or what was East Turkestan until 1949.
“We pleaded with him to stay and not go back [to China], because we said to him you pray, you went to Saudi Arabia a couple of times. We really felt he was going to get into trouble,” Mijit’s son-in-law Arslan Hidayat, who has lived in Turkey since 2011, told me via telephone. “But he was determined to return [to China], and felt a responsibility to be with his people.”
Hidayat and has not heard from his famous father-in-law since November, which gives him reason to fear the worst because Arslan would contact his family every day via the social media app WeChat.
“Obviously communication has been tight, especially in the last year or so, so my father-in-law would send a message everyday just so we knew he was alive or not taken anywhere,” Hidayat explained to me.
It’s thus likely Mijit has been forced into a “re-education” camp or prison as a result of his dedicated devotion to his religious faith.
“In 20 or 30 years from now, the Uyghur people will no longer exist,” warned Hidayat.
These repressive measures, or rather what constitutes textbook ethnic cleansing, have now been extended to China’s largest Muslim minority group — Hui Muslims.
In the first week of January alone, Chinese officials shut down three mosques in Yunnan province, while deploying 100 police officers to suppress and arrest Hui Muslim protesters for conducting “illegal religious education.”
I posted a series of videos on Twitter showing Chinese security forces beating and harassing Hui Muslim men, women, children, and the elderly.
“We are very afraid that we will be next, after the Uyghur,” a Hui Muslim told Foreign Policy. “There are already ‘anti-halal’ groups attacking us and breaking the windows of our restaurants. What do you think will happen?”
What will happen is what is already taking place against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, where men, women, and children are forced into “re-education” camps, forced labor camps, and/or ultimately prison if they stubbornly resist China’s pressure to renounce Islam and accept the Communist-atheist ideology.
In fact, China has put in place a checklist to help its security forces identify who should be detained and sent to a concentration camp for forced indoctrination.
The following are red flags for detainment:
Telling others not to swear. Telling others not to sin. Abstaining from alcohol, pork, or cigarettes. Wearing a hijab. Praying. Going to a mosque. Growing a beard. Wearing a t-shirt with Arabic writing. Listening to a religious lecture. Traveling abroad. Speaking with someone who has traveled abroad. Owning multiple knives. Not allowing government officials to take your DNA. Owning a tent. Owning a compass. Performing a traditional funeral. Speaking non-Chinese language. Wearing clothes with religious iconography. Having WhatsApp on your phone. Not allowing officials to sleep in your bed, eat your food and live in your house.
To the last identifier listed above, Hidayat explained to me how the Chinese government sends male representatives to infiltrate the families of Uyghur men who have been sent to the concentration camps, with the purpose of indoctrinating his wife and children with the state’s ideology.
“There have been many accounts of rape, and many others that document how Uyghur Muslim women have been raped and then committed suicide after learning they’re pregnant with their attacker’s baby,” Hidayat told me, whose account is consistent with other documented reports.
This is what lays in waiting for millions of Hui Muslim women, while not forgetting the myriad of other repressive measures China has put in place for their Uyghur brother and sisters, including the forced collection of DNA, iris scans; perpetual surveillance of their every movement, including GPS tracking devices placed on their cars and phones.
According to members of the British parliament, China’s crackdown on Uyghur and Hui Muslims amounts to human rights abuse not seen since the darkest days of Chairman Mao’s “cultural revolution,” which resulted in the deaths of 45 million people in the decade spanning 1966 to 1976.
The horrors emerging out of China are well known and documented by a slew of human rights groups and governments, but not even a slither of pressure has been applied to the Asian power by the international community, even as millions of Muslims are herded into Nazi-era and/or North Korea styled concentration camps.
In fact, as I recently documented for The New Arab, not a single leader of a Muslim majority country has spoken out forcefully against China’s repressive measures, which speaks to the enormous financial clout China wields over nation states within its economic sphere.
So, if help is to arrive for persecuted Muslims in China, then it will have to come from sub-national actors, including human rights groups, NGOs, activists, and people like you!
Please join CJ Werleman’s fight against anti-Muslim discrimination:
Ongoing Support: https://www.patreon.com/cjwerleman
One-Time Contribution: www.paypal.me/cjwerleman
