New report on mass arrests in Xinjiang

New report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project on the mass arrests of academics, cultural figures, artists, and others in Xinjiang.

The summary says: the Persecution of the Intellectuals in the Uyghur Region Continues:

• 338 Uyghur intellectuals interned, imprisoned or forcibly disappeared since April 2017
• Persecution of teachers, scholars and artists constitutes an attempt to erase Uyghur culture
• Students, lecturers, poets, musicians and media professionals known to be taken away
• 21 staff of Xinjiang University in internment camps
• International scholarly exchange with China cannot be justified until they are released.

https://docs.uhrp.org/pdf/UHRP_UPDATE-ThePersecution_ofTheIntellectuals-in-the-Uyghur-Region.pdf

My comment: Many stand out among the targeted cultural figures, notably the world famous musician Sanubar (Seneber) Tursun who was scheduled to make another international appearance this month at the Rennes global music festival in France, now cancelled since she is disappeared; and Tashpolat Tiyip, the president of Xinjiang University who is said to have been sentenced to death, with no reason given. He is a lifelong scholar of environmental issues, with many books in Chinese. –And many others.

My own view is that this mass targeting of cultural figures is another of several clear indications that this is now a genocide, as per the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, meaning “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” (https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx ), as per the five subheadings of the crime listed in Article II, all of which already apply to Xinjiang, as I argued in my lecture on Xinjiang at Cornell, last Thursday, January 31 (incl. deaths, mass forced eradication of language/culture/religion inside and outside the camps, fertility suppression through forced medication of prisoners, the forced confiscation of children, and more).

Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>

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