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Informed Citizens

are Better Citizens

by Phyllis Raybin Emert

After the Holocaust, when six million Jews were killed in Adolph Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish race, the world collectively committed to the idea that genocide would never happen again. That “never again” commitment, however, has not been met. Since the Holocaust, many genocides have been carried out around the world, including in Cambodia, Uganda, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur—just to name a few.

Genocide is a term coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Genos is the Greek word for family, clan, tribe, race or kin, and cide is the Latin suffix for killing. At the United Nations Genocide Convention, held in 1948, the UN defined genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”

Today, the Uyghurs (pronounced Weegers), a Muslim ethnic minority in China who number about 12 million people, are the latest group being targeted for genocide. The United States has condemned China’s actions against the Uyghurs, as has Canada, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. According to a 59-page report released by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2021 titled “To Make Us Slowly Disappear: The Chinese Government’s Assault on the Uyghurs,” all of those countries agreed that under the UN’s definition, China “was committing genocide against the Uyghurs or that a serious risk of genocide existed.”

When the report was released, Naomi Kikoler, director of the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, told PBS News Hour, “The Chinese government’s assault on the Uyghur community—marked by the incarceration of between one and three million people as well as abuses such as forced sterilization, torture, sexual violence, and forced labor—is alarming in scale and severity. The damage inflicted upon Uyghur individuals, families, and their community has left deep physical and emotional scars. The trauma from these atrocities will harm generations of Uyghurs.”

Who are the Uyghurs?

The Uyghurs are native to the northwest section of the Xinjiang (pronounced SHIN jong) province in China, called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), an area rich in natural resources. In 1949, the Chinese government incorporated the Uyghurs into the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish. They are one of 55 PRC-recognized ethnic minorities and today make up less than half of the Xinjiang Province’s population.

In the 1990s, the Chinese government encouraged large numbers of Han Chinese—China’s largest ethnic group, making up 92% of China’s 1.4 billion population—to move to the Xinjiang Province. This move caused violence and protests between the local Uyghurs and Han residents, who were given preferential treatment and government incentives to move there. Since 2017, China has used widespread persecution to assimilate and/or eliminate the Uyghur culture and identity, according to the Holocaust Museum’s report.

What have the Uyghurs suffered?

It is not clear how many Uyghurs have been detained or are still being detained in the more than 380 detention facilities located in the Xinjiang Province, which have been documented through satellite photos. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations, an estimated 800,000 to two million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been detained since 2017. Other estimates put the number closer to three million people. The Chinese government first denied the existence of these camps and then called them “vocational education and training centers.” International media organizations use terms such as reeducation camps, internment camps, as well as concentration camps.

According to the Holocaust Museum’s report, the Chinese government has subjected Uyghurs to mass surveillance and passed laws curtailing their religious and cultural expression.

“Since 2017, the Chinese government has instituted more restrictive policies and laws limiting Uyghurs in Xinjiang from speaking the Uyghur language, wearing traditional clothing, having beards, wearing headscarves in public places, using traditional Islamic greetings and performing a number of Uyghur religious and cultural practices,” the report states. “Engaging in regular prayer or fasting for Ramadan are considered by the Chinese authorities as ‘signs of extremism.’”

In March 2023, a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee held hearings to learn more about the Uyghurs. In congressional testimony, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur woman, recounted her harrowing experience in one of these camps. It started with her being tricked into coming back to Xinjiang in 2017. Haitiwaji, who had been living in France with her husband and daughter, thought she was coming back for two weeks to take care of some paperwork. She was arrested, put on trial without the benefit of a lawyer, and ultimately sentenced to seven years in a “reeducation camp.”

Haitiwaji said the prisoners at the camp were subjected to brainwashing with “whole days spent repeating the same idiotic phrases.” She also recounted an incident where a woman had closed her eyes from exhaustion and a guard accused her of praying, then dragged her from the room.

“The method of the camps is not to kill us in cold blood, but to make us slowly disappear. So slowly that no one would notice,” Haitiwaji said. “We were ordered to deny who we were. To spit on our own traditions, our beliefs. To criticize our language. To insult our own people. I was made to believe that we [her family], the Haitiwajis, were terrorists.”

After three years in the camp, Haitiwaji made a deal agreeing that she and her family would stop their Uyghur activism in exchange for her freedom. She was forced to make a video denouncing Uyghur activism and praising the Chinese government. Before leaving the camp, Haitiwaji said that Chinese officials issued this warning: “Whatever I had witnessed in the concentration camp, I should not talk about it. If I do, they said they will retaliate against my family members back home.”

In 2021, Haitiwaji published a book about her experiences. She says the Chinese government labeled her a terrorist and she has not been able to contact family members who still live in China.

Why the crackdown?

According to an article posted on CFR’s website, “The Chinese government has come to characterize any expression of Islam in Xinjiang as extremist.” The article goes on to explain, “Following the 9/11 attacks, the Chinese government started justifying its actions toward Uyghurs as part of the ‘Global War on Terror.’ It [China] said it would combat what it calls ‘the three evils’—separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism—at all costs.”

Sean R. Roberts, a professor at George Washington University, is the author of The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Campaign against Xinjiang Muslims. In an interview with Made in China Journal, a publication that focuses on Chinese politics and society, Professor Roberts said he believes that China’s goal is “to marginalize the Uyghurs so that it can develop their homeland as part of a Han-centric nation-building project that is fueled by the state’s economic expansion.” Professor Roberts points out in the interview that the Xinjiang Province is rich in oil and gas and produces one-fifth of the world’s cotton.

In an op-ed for The Conversation, Kerry Whigham, Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University in New York, wrote that genocide is a process, not an event.

“For instance, the Nazis did not build death camps immediately when Adolph Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933,” Professor Whigham wrote. “The Holocaust began with smaller steps, like preventing Jewish people from holding certain jobs, then preventing Jews and non-Jews from marrying each other.”

U.S. passes legislation

The United States has passed specific legislation to support the basic rights of Uyghurs. The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act condemns human rights violations of Uyghurs and all Muslims in Xinjiang and calls for an end to detention, torture, and harassment. The Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act designates certain residents in Xinjiang (and their families) as prioritized refugees to the United States on humanitarian grounds.

The U.S. also issued sanctions against many Chinese manufacturers who use forced labor by Uyghurs to produce items such as textiles, garments, computer parts, hair products, home appliance and processed cotton. In June 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act went into effect, which prohibits imports into the United States made by forced labor from the Xinjiang Province.

The NBA’s relationship to China           

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has done business with China for many years, as the sport is very popular there. The NBA is estimated to generate about $5 billion in revenue from China, which is approximately 10% of its total revenue.

In addition, some of the League’s biggest stars “maintain lucrative contracts with four Chinese companies accused of being in conflict with human rights violations,” according to an article from ESPN. These companies use forced labor from Uyghur detention camps to produce their products, such as shoes and apparel.

“In almost all of these cases involving big companies or sports leagues, you simply need to follow the money to understand why certain actors are behaving a certain way,” says Peter Irwin, Senior Program Officer at the Uyghurs Human Rights Project, a research-based advocacy organization located in Washington, DC that promotes human rights for Uyghurs. “The NBA knows full well that basketball is an incredibly popular sport in China, and they make a lot of money in that country, so they tend to do whatever they can to refrain from any kind of criticism [of China].”

Where do we go from here?

Irwin explains that in a country like China “with so much political and economic power” it will take a united and determined effort of the world’s society of nations to push for change.

“The international community has to confront China, economically, especially where Chinese companies are profiting from their connections with the persecution of Uyghurs—like technology and surveillance companies—or apparel, textiles, manufacturing or the solar sector, which are known to be using forced labor,” Irwin says.

The United Kingdom Uyghur Tribunal Report suggests taking China’s actions to the world’s highest court—The International Court of Justice at The Hague in the Netherlands, which is a civil tribunal that hears disputes between countries. The International Criminal Court, also at The Hague, prosecutes those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum report concludes, “It is critical that the community of nations act collectively, based on a common strategy, to prevent further atrocities and establish accountability for the crimes committed by a powerful perpetrator.”

Discussion Questions

  1. What similarities and differences do you notice between the Jewish people living in 1930s/1940s Germany and the Uyghurs today?
  2. In the article Professor Whigham said that genocide is a process, not an event. What do you think she means by that?
  3. Read “The 10 Stages of Genocide” below. Dr. Stanton contends that at some of these stages there is an opportunity to stop genocide before it happens. Select one of the earlier stages and explain what steps could be taken by the community, other countries, etc. to stop the victimization of the persecuted group.

Glossary Words
legislation
— the enactment of law by a legislative body (ie., Congress or a state legislature).
sterilization—procedure to make a person unable to produce offspring.

The 10 Stages of Genocide

Genocide never just happens. There is always a set of circumstances which occur, or which are created to build the climate in which genocide can take place, according to research conducted by Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, the coordinating organization of the Alliance Against Genocide, an international coalition of organizations.

Dr. Stanton developed the 10 stages of genocide which explains the different stages that can lead to genocide. At each of the earlier stages there is an opportunity for members of the community or the international community to halt the stages and stop genocide before it happens.

Here are the stages:

  1. Classification—The differences between people are not respected. There’s a division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which can be carried out using stereotypes, or excluding people who are perceived to be different.
  2. Symbolism—This is a visual manifestation of hatred. Jews in Nazi Europe were forced to wear yellow stars to show that they were “different.”
  3. Discrimination—The dominant group denies civil rights or even citizenship to identified groups. The 1935 Nuremburg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, made it illegal for them to do many jobs or to marry German non-Jews.
  4. Dehumanization—Those perceived as “different” are treated with no form of human rights or personal dignity. During the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Tutsis were referred to as “cockroaches;” the Nazis referred to Jews as “vermin.”
  5. Organization—Genocides are always planned. Regimes of hatred often train those who go on to carry out the destruction of a people.
  6. Polarization—Propaganda begins to be spread by hate groups. The Nazis used the newspaper Der Stürmer to spread and incite messages of hate about Jewish people.
  7. Preparation—Perpetrators plan the genocide. They often use euphemisms such as the Nazis’ phrase “The Final Solution” to cloak their intentions. They create fear of the victim group, building up armies and weapons.
  8. Persecution—Victims are identified because of their ethnicity or religion and death lists are drawn up. People are sometimes segregated into ghettos, deported or starved and property is often expropriated [taken away]. Genocidal massacres begin.
  9. Extermination—The hate group murders their identified victims in a deliberate and systematic campaign of violence. Millions of lives have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition through genocide.
  10. Denial—The perpetrators or later generations deny the existence of any crime.

Source: Holocaust Memorial Day Trust              

This article originally appeared in the spring 2023 issue of Respect, NJSBF’s diversity and inclusion newsletter.