“RE-EDUCATION” CAMPS IN CHINA

I must say that the world`s history is everything except a straight line. It´s a path
of learning, where the mistakes are the engine of a complex machine and we
ended up receiving more for what we destroy instead for what we create.
One of the darkest eras of the
humanity`s history was, for sure, the
World War two, characterized by the
genocide of hundreds of people in the
concentration camps. And, from a
tragedy like this, we can only expect
some sort of “redemption” by the
future generations, or, at least, some
signs of evolution. However, the world
seems not to be willing to learn and so
I decided to report a similar series of
human rights abuses, this time in
China, ongoing since 2014.
Since then, the police has been sent, by the Chinese government, to seize and
dispatch all the minorities, especially members of the Uyghur community, to
internment camps.
But who is this community and where are these centers of detention located at?
The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking group, being one of the predominant
Muslim ethnic minorities in East Asia, more specifically, in Xinjiang, Northwest
China, which we can see in the map as red.
It is also in this area where are situated most of the concentration camps, or as
the government insists to call them, re-education ones.
China denies all allegations of human rights abuses, claiming that this system of
re-education camps is there to combat separatisms, however former Chinese
police detectives, exiled now in Europe, and some victims who escaped from
this genocide, describe it as a pure act of xenophobia.
Based on multiple testifies, it was possible to gain awareness of the dimension
of this problem and to have a realistic idea about the nightmare lived in that
place.
Tursun, a young mother Uyghur, interviewed in 2018, described her traumatic
experience, referring how she was drugged, interrogated for days without sleep,
and even strapped to an electric chair since supposedly “being Uyghur was a
crime” but, despite all of this, she classified it as the least they can do.
One of the addressed topics
was, for example, the
compulsory sterilizations and
contraception. As we can see
in this graphic, since 2014, it
is notorious a sharp increase
in sterilization of Uyghur
women in comparison with the
rest of the population. It is a
female mutilation in order to
ensure that the Uyghurs will
remain a minority in the region.
Most of the victims have also spoken of gang rapes and sexual abuses, making
detailed and sickening descriptions where a world without dignity is
emphasized.
A happening like this one results on a series of consequences against an
innocent community, both on a cultural level once it became illegal to give to
their children names that the Chinese government deemed to "exaggerate
religious fervor". And on a psychological level related, for example, with
persistent attempts of brainwashing, that consist on the victims being forced to
criticize their own Islamic beliefs, recite Communist Party propaganda songs for
hours each day, eat pork and drink alcohol, which are forbidden in their religion.
And, of course, it brings consequences in a physical plan associated to torture
and forced labor imposed on over a million prisoners.
This situation hasn´t improved yet, nonetheless the European union has already
joined with the US to impose multilateral sanctions against perpetrators of
serious human rights violations in Xinjian.

Although, in our daily life, we can appeal to some  practical and accessible ways
in which we can help the Uyghur Muslims like by signing petitions, by making
little donates to help the Uyghur refugees…we can use our social media to
share this problem and raise awareness, among others.
The religious beliefs of this group are seen as a pathology by the Chinese
government, and I chose exactly this subject to emphasize my repulse against
statements like this one. We all are human beings, and as so we need to
believe in something to fulfill our daily life even if we simply believe that
everything is going to be fine. The concept of believing is not a question of
agreeing or disagreeing, it’s a question of respect and if we start to face the
respect as a two-way street, we definitely are going to change the world.