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Their country their indoctrination and brainwashing camps. Nothing to do with Muslims in the higher than the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest sea
'Thank the Party!' China tries to brainwash Muslims in internment camps
APUpdated May 17, 2018
Facebook Count765
Twitter Share
80
Omir Bekali, third left, washes up before prayers at a mosque in Almaty, Kazakhstan. — AP
Day after day, Omir Bekali and other detainees in far western China's new indoctrination camps had to disavow their Islamic beliefs, criticise themselves and their loved ones and give thanks to the ruling Communist Party.
When Bekali, a Kazakh Muslim, refused, he was forced to stand at a wall for five hours at a time. A week later, he was sent to solitary confinement and deprived of food for 24 hours. After 20 days, he wanted to kill himself.
Omir Bekali talks about the psychological stress he endure in a Chinese internment camp during an interview in Almaty, Kazakhstan. — AP
“The psychological pressure is enormous, when you have to criticise yourself, denounce your thinking your own ethnic group,” said Bekali, 42, who broke down in tears while describing the camp. “I still think about it every night, until the sun rises.”
Since last spring, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have ensnared tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslim Chinese and even foreign citizens in mass internment camps.
This detention campaign has swept across Xinjiang, a territory half the area of India, leading to what a United States (US) commission on China last month said is “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today".
The internment programme tries to rewire the political thinking of detainees, erase their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities. Chinese officials have largely avoided comment, but some have said in state media that ideological changes are needed to fight separatism and Islamic extremism. Radical Muslim Uighurs killed hundreds in China in years past.
Three other former internees and a former instructor in different centers corroborated Bekali's depiction. Taken together, the recollections offer the most detailed account yet of life inside so-called re-education.
The programme is a hallmark of China's emboldened state security apparatus under the deeply nationalistic, hard-line rule of President Xi Jinping. It is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese belief in transformation through education taken once before to terrifying extremes during the mass thought reform campaigns of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader sometimes channelled by Xi.
“Cultural cleansing is Beijing's attempt to find a final solution to the Xinjiang problem,” said James Millward, a China historian at Georgetown University.
The internment system is shrouded in secrecy, with no publicly available data. The US State Department estimates those being held are “at the very least in the tens of thousands".
A Turkey-based TV station run by Xinjiang exiles said almost 900,000 were detained, citing leaked government documents. Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology, puts the number between several hundreds of thousands and just over one million, and government bids suggest construction is ongoing.
Asked to comment on the camps, China's foreign ministry said it “had not heard” of the situation. Chinese officials in Xinjiang did not respond to requests for comment.
However, China's top prosecutor, Zhang Jun, urged Xinjiang's authorities this month to extensively expand what the government calls “transformation through education” in an “all-out effort” to fight extremism.
China-born Bekali moved to Kazakhstan in 2006 and received citizenship three years later.
Omir Bekali holds up a mobile phone showing a photo of his parents whom he believes have been detained in China. — AP
On March 25 last year, Bekali visited his parents in Xinjiang. The next day, police took him away. They strapped him into a “tiger chair” that clamped down his wrists and ankles. They hung him by his wrists against a barred wall. They interrogated him about his work inviting Chinese to apply for Kazakh tourist visas.
“I haven't committed any crimes!” Bekali yelled.
Seven months later, Bekali was taken out of his cell and handed a release paper. But he was not free.
Bekali was driven to a fenced compound in Karamay, where three buildings held more than 1,000 internees.
They would wake up together before dawn, sing the Chinese national anthem, and raise the Chinese flag at 7.30am. They sang songs praising the party and studied Chinese language and history. They were told that the indigenous sheep-herding Central Asian people of Xinjiang were backward before they were “liberated” by the Communist Party in the 1950s.
When they ate meals of vegetable soup and buns, they first had to chant: “Thank the Party! Thank the Motherland! Thank President Xi!”
Bekali was kept in a locked room almost around the clock with eight other internees, who shared beds and a wretched toilet. Cameras were installed in toilets and outhouses. Baths were rare, as was washing of hands and feet, equated with Islamic ablution.
In four-hour sessions, instructors lectured about the dangers of Islam and drilled internees with quizzes that they had to answer correctly or be sent to stand near a wall for hours on end.
“Do you obey Chinese law or Sharia?” instructors asked. “Do you understand why religion is dangerous?”
The detainees had to criticise and be criticised by their peers. One by one, they would also stand up before 60 classmates to present self-criticisms of their religious history.
“I was taught the Holy Quran by my father and I learned it because I didn't know better,” Bekali heard one say.
“I travelled outside China without knowing that I could be exposed to extremist thoughts abroad,” another said. “Now I know.”
After a week, Bekali went to his first stint in solitary confinement. He yelled out to a visiting official.
“Take me in the back and kill me, or send me back to prison,” he shouted. “I can't be here anymore.”
He was again hauled off to solitary confinement. It lasted 24 hours, ending late afternoon on Nov 24, when Bekali was suddenly released.
At first, Bekali did not want the AP to publish his account for fear his sister and mother in China would be detained.
But on March 10, the police took his sister, Adila Bekali. A week later, they took his mother, Amina Sadik. And on April 24, his father, Ebrayem.
Bekali changed his mind and said he wanted to tell his story.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1408257
Remember its only Indians that can be criticised for the few who post on social media. But millions of Chinese Anti-muslim posts should never be criticised. Their social media thier rules
Rioting video sparks anti-Muslim rage in China
AFPUpdated September 07, 2017
Facebook Count1149
Twitter Share
9
BEIJING: Chinese internet users bombarded government social media accounts on Wednesday with thousands of anti-Islamic messages in response to unverified videos showing rioting involving Muslims.
Online attacks on Chinese Muslim minorities have surged in recent years, with commenters directing angry screeds at both the Hui and the Uighur minority groups in the country’s north and far west.
The alleged row that triggered the latest flood of invective took place in the city of Tangshan in northern China’s Hebei province on Monday.
According to unconfirmed reports, a group of Hui protesters clashed with police who were carrying shields and wearing uniforms that suggested they were part of a SWAT team, according to online videos. In the clips filmed at night, the protesters appeared to punch their arms in the air, point their fingers and tell police to “kneel down”.
It was unclear whether one of the protesters threw a rock at the police, as was alleged in a report by the state-run Global Times. The newspaper also quoted a Tangshan government employee as saying that “someone was beaten”, without giving further details.
In response to the reports, Chinese internet users directed a flood of abuse at the official social media account of the city’s public security bureau, accusing them of putting the interests of Muslims over those of the majority Han ethnic group.
The commenters accused authorities of being overly lenient towards “violent” Muslim minorities and demanded swift punishment, in remarks that remained visible on Wednesday.
But elsewhere, searches for the term “Muslim Tangshan” and related phrases were blocked, with a message stating that the content violated community guidelines.
Calls to the Tangshan public security bureau went unanswered on Wednesday.
In recent months, Chinese netizens have expressed fury over a variety of reports that they claim show preferential treatment for Muslims. But the situation of Chinese Muslims is precarious, with Uighurs in particular coming under increasingly strict curbs on their religious freedoms following a series of deadly attacks across the country.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1356104
'Thank the Party!' China tries to brainwash Muslims in internment camps
APUpdated May 17, 2018
Facebook Count765
Twitter Share
80
Omir Bekali, third left, washes up before prayers at a mosque in Almaty, Kazakhstan. — AP
Day after day, Omir Bekali and other detainees in far western China's new indoctrination camps had to disavow their Islamic beliefs, criticise themselves and their loved ones and give thanks to the ruling Communist Party.
When Bekali, a Kazakh Muslim, refused, he was forced to stand at a wall for five hours at a time. A week later, he was sent to solitary confinement and deprived of food for 24 hours. After 20 days, he wanted to kill himself.
Omir Bekali talks about the psychological stress he endure in a Chinese internment camp during an interview in Almaty, Kazakhstan. — AP
“The psychological pressure is enormous, when you have to criticise yourself, denounce your thinking your own ethnic group,” said Bekali, 42, who broke down in tears while describing the camp. “I still think about it every night, until the sun rises.”
Since last spring, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have ensnared tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslim Chinese and even foreign citizens in mass internment camps.
This detention campaign has swept across Xinjiang, a territory half the area of India, leading to what a United States (US) commission on China last month said is “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today".
The internment programme tries to rewire the political thinking of detainees, erase their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities. Chinese officials have largely avoided comment, but some have said in state media that ideological changes are needed to fight separatism and Islamic extremism. Radical Muslim Uighurs killed hundreds in China in years past.
Three other former internees and a former instructor in different centers corroborated Bekali's depiction. Taken together, the recollections offer the most detailed account yet of life inside so-called re-education.
The programme is a hallmark of China's emboldened state security apparatus under the deeply nationalistic, hard-line rule of President Xi Jinping. It is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese belief in transformation through education taken once before to terrifying extremes during the mass thought reform campaigns of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader sometimes channelled by Xi.
“Cultural cleansing is Beijing's attempt to find a final solution to the Xinjiang problem,” said James Millward, a China historian at Georgetown University.
The internment system is shrouded in secrecy, with no publicly available data. The US State Department estimates those being held are “at the very least in the tens of thousands".
A Turkey-based TV station run by Xinjiang exiles said almost 900,000 were detained, citing leaked government documents. Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology, puts the number between several hundreds of thousands and just over one million, and government bids suggest construction is ongoing.
Asked to comment on the camps, China's foreign ministry said it “had not heard” of the situation. Chinese officials in Xinjiang did not respond to requests for comment.
However, China's top prosecutor, Zhang Jun, urged Xinjiang's authorities this month to extensively expand what the government calls “transformation through education” in an “all-out effort” to fight extremism.
China-born Bekali moved to Kazakhstan in 2006 and received citizenship three years later.
Omir Bekali holds up a mobile phone showing a photo of his parents whom he believes have been detained in China. — AP
On March 25 last year, Bekali visited his parents in Xinjiang. The next day, police took him away. They strapped him into a “tiger chair” that clamped down his wrists and ankles. They hung him by his wrists against a barred wall. They interrogated him about his work inviting Chinese to apply for Kazakh tourist visas.
“I haven't committed any crimes!” Bekali yelled.
Seven months later, Bekali was taken out of his cell and handed a release paper. But he was not free.
Bekali was driven to a fenced compound in Karamay, where three buildings held more than 1,000 internees.
They would wake up together before dawn, sing the Chinese national anthem, and raise the Chinese flag at 7.30am. They sang songs praising the party and studied Chinese language and history. They were told that the indigenous sheep-herding Central Asian people of Xinjiang were backward before they were “liberated” by the Communist Party in the 1950s.
When they ate meals of vegetable soup and buns, they first had to chant: “Thank the Party! Thank the Motherland! Thank President Xi!”
Bekali was kept in a locked room almost around the clock with eight other internees, who shared beds and a wretched toilet. Cameras were installed in toilets and outhouses. Baths were rare, as was washing of hands and feet, equated with Islamic ablution.
In four-hour sessions, instructors lectured about the dangers of Islam and drilled internees with quizzes that they had to answer correctly or be sent to stand near a wall for hours on end.
“Do you obey Chinese law or Sharia?” instructors asked. “Do you understand why religion is dangerous?”
The detainees had to criticise and be criticised by their peers. One by one, they would also stand up before 60 classmates to present self-criticisms of their religious history.
“I was taught the Holy Quran by my father and I learned it because I didn't know better,” Bekali heard one say.
“I travelled outside China without knowing that I could be exposed to extremist thoughts abroad,” another said. “Now I know.”
After a week, Bekali went to his first stint in solitary confinement. He yelled out to a visiting official.
“Take me in the back and kill me, or send me back to prison,” he shouted. “I can't be here anymore.”
He was again hauled off to solitary confinement. It lasted 24 hours, ending late afternoon on Nov 24, when Bekali was suddenly released.
At first, Bekali did not want the AP to publish his account for fear his sister and mother in China would be detained.
But on March 10, the police took his sister, Adila Bekali. A week later, they took his mother, Amina Sadik. And on April 24, his father, Ebrayem.
Bekali changed his mind and said he wanted to tell his story.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1408257
Remember its only Indians that can be criticised for the few who post on social media. But millions of Chinese Anti-muslim posts should never be criticised. Their social media thier rules
Rioting video sparks anti-Muslim rage in China
AFPUpdated September 07, 2017
Facebook Count1149
Twitter Share
9
BEIJING: Chinese internet users bombarded government social media accounts on Wednesday with thousands of anti-Islamic messages in response to unverified videos showing rioting involving Muslims.
Online attacks on Chinese Muslim minorities have surged in recent years, with commenters directing angry screeds at both the Hui and the Uighur minority groups in the country’s north and far west.
The alleged row that triggered the latest flood of invective took place in the city of Tangshan in northern China’s Hebei province on Monday.
According to unconfirmed reports, a group of Hui protesters clashed with police who were carrying shields and wearing uniforms that suggested they were part of a SWAT team, according to online videos. In the clips filmed at night, the protesters appeared to punch their arms in the air, point their fingers and tell police to “kneel down”.
It was unclear whether one of the protesters threw a rock at the police, as was alleged in a report by the state-run Global Times. The newspaper also quoted a Tangshan government employee as saying that “someone was beaten”, without giving further details.
In response to the reports, Chinese internet users directed a flood of abuse at the official social media account of the city’s public security bureau, accusing them of putting the interests of Muslims over those of the majority Han ethnic group.
The commenters accused authorities of being overly lenient towards “violent” Muslim minorities and demanded swift punishment, in remarks that remained visible on Wednesday.
But elsewhere, searches for the term “Muslim Tangshan” and related phrases were blocked, with a message stating that the content violated community guidelines.
Calls to the Tangshan public security bureau went unanswered on Wednesday.
In recent months, Chinese netizens have expressed fury over a variety of reports that they claim show preferential treatment for Muslims. But the situation of Chinese Muslims is precarious, with Uighurs in particular coming under increasingly strict curbs on their religious freedoms following a series of deadly attacks across the country.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1356104
