Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China
Podcast Assignment: Recorded 11/8/2020
L: Hi my name is Leanna Zynda. I am a fourth year student majoring in medical dietetics and we will be doing our podcast assignment on the Uyghurs in China.
C: My name is Carina Lang. I’m a third year student in nursing and I’m excited to do this podcast.
R: Hi everybody my name is Ryan Harrigan. I’m a second year student in the aviation major. I’m super excited to do this podcast. It was nice to meet Carina and Leanna.
R: Alright guys! Leanna I know you had a video for us to try and get everyone oriented to this very interesting topic and what is going on in Xinjiang, China. So, I think as you try to pull that up; which we’ll try to do our best with this technology.
L: Ok, here we go.
R: Cool, let’s do it.
[Video Clip]
Richard Bilton: My name is Richard Bilton. I’m a reporter for BBC Panorama. I wrote to you this week, sir, about the report in Xinjiang. I know that they are prison camps. Why won’t you tell me the truth about those camps?
Liu Xiaoming: First of all, I have to say, there’s no so-called labour camps as you describe. There’s what you call vocational, education and training centres. They are there for the prevention of terrorists.
Richard Bilton: With respect sir, I’m sorry to interrupt you but I have seen the orders that are sent to the prison camps and they are prisons.
Liu Xiaoming: What orders do you have? You mean the order that this is a prison camp?
Richard Bilton: They are orders for the people who run the camps and they are quite clear. That this is a prison camp.
Liu Xiaming: No I think that this is a pure fabrication.
Richard Bilton: It’s true. They’re brainwashing camps.
Liu Xiaming: Let me tell you what’s happening.
Richard Bilton: They change the way people behave, what they believe, even the language they speak, so they are brainwashing camps, aren’t they?
Liu Xiaming: I think there’s no such order for prison camps. You know, in Xinjiang, religious freedom is fully respected.
Richard Bilton: Just to be clear, the documents I’ve seen make it quite clear that people are held there, hundreds of thousands of people are held in these camps in Xinjiang. What you’re telling me, there’s no relation to what I’ve seen?
Liu Xiaming: I’m telling you that the so-called document that you’re talking about is a pure fabrication, sir. Don’t listen to fake news. Don’t listen to fabrications.
[End Video Clip]
R: Wow, very interesting.
C: Alright, very powerful video there.
R: Cool, well just I guess for anyone that doesn’t really know what’s going on…in Xinjiang, China there’s a group of Muslims called Uyghurs and unfortunately there was a terrorist attack in 2012 that motivated Chinese xenophobia, or islamophobia toward people, in this ethnic group. Ever since then China has started setting up concentration camps or what some say…are calling reeducation camps. Satellite images and reports we are getting from China would beg to differ unfortunately. So it looks like people their are being killed, their being sterilized so they cannot have children, they are basically trying to eradicate the Uyghur culture from every existing in Xinjiang, China. So, there is a lot of evidence, the Chinese cannot deny it any more and we are here to talk about how that is systemically unjust.
C: Yeah, they started…sorry Leanna…they started these camps back in 2014, so it’s been going on for a long time and the Chinese government just does not want…he just denies it every single time, ya know? They’re detaining the whole population and it’s not fair.
R: Ya, ya. You look at the video evidence, you really can’t deny it anymore. It’s out there.
C: Right.
L: Definitely. It’s also concerning the fact that there’s so much surveillance going within the community where this type of Muslim living. It’s just crazy, I mean the research that they found, the people investigating this, have shown that cameras are on them at all times. If they’re like moving fast, they are charted as dangerous, which can cause them to be arrested and detained. So it’s definitely a bunch of unfairness going on with these people. Definitely not right. A lot of injustice going on.
R: Ya. Absolutely.
C: I’ve also heard like religious restrictions, ya know? So, like, their culture is being pulled apart I feel like.
R: Ya. Definitely. I think in relation to course concepts, that’s a perfect example of Othering.
C: Right.
R: You can’t just throw everybody into the same category because of all of the hand full of people’s mistakes. Unfortunately, it’s happening, though.
L: Ya, definitely. It kind of ties back to where we, like, where we were at with the 9/11 attacks. Like, China is doing pretty much the same thing that we were but to a little bit more of an extreme. There’s a lot of Othering going on here in the United States but definitely to a whole other level there right now.
R: Ya, I would agree.
C: I would also consider the master-slave concept where the Muslims are looked at as basically the slaves in these camps compared to, like, the master as the Chinese government, controlling them. Would you guys agree with that?
R: Absolutely.
L: Definitely.
R: What do you guys think can be, like done about this? Does, like, NATO needs to get involved, or?
C: Ya, I know a lot of people have tried to shut them down such as the United Nations officials, foreign governments, human rights organizations, and the Chinese government is just really not listening to them, ya know? They’re doing their own thing trying to make people stay out of their business, I guess, because they don’t want anyone to know. But, I know they’re trying. But, ya know we’re so small it’s hard to think of ways that we can make an impact. Like, I know they’re trying to make an impact, for sure.
R: Right. Yeah absolutely.
L: Definitely. It’s hard with China still denying everything about it and not coming out and saying that it is what it is because it’s just education camps and they’re studying. It’s a lot more than that.
C: Right! I don’t believe it at all.
R: Right..and I hate to go back here but I mean like you guys mentioned the evidence is there, it’s overwhelming. There’s people that have either escaped or been released surprisingly and their like, listen! Electroshock therapy, forced to accept communist teachings, denial of religion, physical torture, physical abuse, and now even death. I mean there’s so many satellite images of mass graves in Xinjiang, China…the northern province of Xinjiang China, there decimating these areas trying to cover up the evidence unfortunately.
C: So, I had read an article…oh, sorry Leanna…about a person that had escaped from there and they mentioned the very harsh conditions. So just going back to what Ryan said, very unfair treatment towards them.
L: They do have cellphones inside the camps and if they make calls to someone else they have to be really careful what they say they can’t really, there is nothing they can say. If they give too much information only bad stuff will happen to them. It’s also concerning and sad where these Muslim are living in China that their Mosques and all that…they can’t even go to them anymore. It’s just sad to see their heritage is falling apart and they are being discriminated.
C: Their culture is being changed. You know? Very tough for them.
R: Leanna going off what you said I saw an interesting article 6 of their Mosques in that area where leveled to the ground, completely decimated…right…I don’t know, crazy.
L: Also scary, a lot of the work we’ve been doing talking about in class it seems as if we’ve already moved passed it but we are still healing from the wounds. It’s hard to look at this situation and realize they are still being detained, there is still harm going on, it is not just otherness in normal society that we might…I’m not sure if you guys get what I’m trying to say there.
C: Yes!
R: Ya! Are you saying it’s gone beyond systemic racism? This is turning into a physical problem.
L: Ya. It’s just sad.
C: Think about how the family members and the friends of these loved ones feel. They are being stripped away from them and it’s heart wrenching and you hear the worry in their voices in some videos I listened to and in some scripts where you read about their experiences. They are splitting up families and they don’t care. It’s really sad to see!
R: Right. I read an interesting statistic. 85% of the population in Xinjiang, hopefully I’m saying that right, has decreased…the Uyghur population has decreased and so clearly that is a problem. That means millions are still unaccounted for and they keep asking questions, where are my family members, where are my loved ones and the Chinese government just won’t give answers.
C: There’s millions of them there and hundreds of camps. Tons of them.
C: Going back to what….
R: Interesting.
C: Sorry Ryan.
R: No go ahead!
C: Going back to what you said that we can fix this, I don’t know. I know that when Trump was president, he had signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act into law to address a lot of the human rights violations made by the Chinese. That’s something they could carry on and try to bring this to light. They keep denying it and you can only do so much. What else do you guys think?
R: Well, I think in terms of solving the problem, in Spivak’s work she talked about minorities having a voice. Clearly these people are so oppressed that they can’t have that voice. So maybe doing a podcast like this is the voice…we can be their voice…we can get their message out there as sad as it is and hopefully things change for them.
L: There’s change that needs to be done. As long as we can do things like this and the U.S. government keeps getting involved, that’s about what we can do.
R: I think this requires a world effort unfortunately. It’s just gotten too far out of hand.
L: The Uyghurs in China have had a really harsh time in China for the past few years now. It’s sad…for me…I’ve just been made aware of this whole situation. It’s crazy. These people are going through so much and I didn’t even know about it which is crazy to me. As we keep working to let their voices be heard hopefully that is where we can start making a change for the better.
C: I also did not know very much about it before this podcast. When I did my research it was very sad. I wish there was something our government and also others can do to help stop this.
R: Right. Sorry guys am I still there. My apple ID popped up. Anyways, I did my diary of systemic injustice showcase on this one and I found this topic shocking and am so surprised this is happening today in the 21st century. Like you guys said, these people don’t have a voice so hopefully we can be there’s…and the world does something about this because clearly it’s bigger than just us.
C: Agreed
L: For those who are interested in learning more there is a really good documentary on PBS that gives you a really good insight of what these people are going through and puts it into intolight. Thank you for listening to us!
C: Thank you guys!
R: Thank you so much.
Resources
BBC News. (2020, September 24). Xinjiang: Large numbers of new detention camps uncovered in report. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54277430
KARAM. (2020, september 17). Injustice against the Uighur Muslims. Retrieved from Karam: https://www.karamfoundation.org/1693-2/
Lippman, D., & Toosi, N. (2020, 08 25). Trump administration weighs accusing China of ‘genocide’ over Uighurs. Retrieved from Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/trump-administration-china-genocide-uighurs-401581
Rahim, Z. (2019, October 22). Prisoners in China’s Xinjiang concentration camps subjected to gang rape and medical experiments, former detainee says. Retrieved from Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-xinjiang-uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xi-jinping-persecution-a9165896.html
Reinsberg, L. (2020, July 29). China’s Forced Sterilization of Ughur Women Violates Clear International Law. Retrieved from Just Security : https://www.justsecurity.org/71615/chinas-forced-sterilization-of-uyghur-women-violates-clear-international-law/
Vox (Director). (2019). China’s secret internment camps [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMkHcZ5IwjU&t=305s
Werleman, C. (2020, August 24). ‘Death is Everywhere’ Millions More Uyghurs Missing . Retrieved from Byline Times: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/08/24/death-is-everywhere-millions-more-uyghurs-missing/