Uighurs living in Pakistan

[humanfirst]

self delete

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

sympathizing with Muslim cause is inevitable....but its also a moral cause (when you look at Kashmir or Palestine conflicts for example where concerns are legitimate and pronounced by Muslims and non Muslims alike)

in the case of Uighurs, some kind of political settlement would be useful. If you follow what happened during the small clashes in the past 2 year or so, it was actually the Uighurs who instigated and exacerbated the troubles. We offered to help the Chinese friends to solve the situation politically, and it worked.

and it would be criminal to compare Palestine/Kashmir to what happens in Xinjiang China. The former are under total siege and are militarized to kingdom come -with frustrated and freedom deprived citizens

 

[Ahmad]

Dont have mercy on uighur separatist and al qaeda elements, but the ordinary citizens need to be given a fair freedom of religion. otherwise some of these poliicies could backfire.

 

[SandsofTime]

^^^^
The fact is that India does not put any restirctions on practice of religion including Kashmir. And armed Jihad is considered viable only when freedom to practice religion is curtailed.

The freedom struggle in Kashmir is not jihad in the sense that you have mentioned. Its a secular and moral effort over a recognized disputed territory, an artifact of imperfect and incomplete division of British India. Comparing Xinjiang situation with Kashmir is therefore not correct.

 

[RayKalm]

“We decided to settle here in the 1990s,” said Muhammed. “It was better to stay here in Pakistan than in China, because there was no religious freedom in China.”

Good to hear positive feedback about Pakistan.

The Uighur nation is made up of a very ancient people. At one time, the Uighurs were the dominant population in their region - long before the Mongols swept Asia, the steppes of Russia, the Persian empire, and ultimately the Byzantine empire. It was while a part of the Mongolian empire that the Uighurs became Muslim.

Many of China's complaints are specious. The Uighurs, as with the Tibetans and most of the other ethnic minorities under Beijing's thumb, have for a very long time suffered discriminiation, represession and an all-out assault on thier cultural identity. In China's borders, Uighurs are quite similar to the Lakota Souix of the 1800's. But just as the Souix indeed fought and raided and struggled, so also has there been a violent and armed body of Uighurs resisting China

 

[somebozo]

Yes Pakistan is the land of opportunity for many people across the globe. Chinese, Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Iranians, we have it all.

And a land of bhatta for few...who try to control it from London..

On topic..

Pakistan has a immense potential as it lies on 5 strategic trade routes but we are sleeping as a nation.

 

[A1Kaid]

If Uyghur population grows in Pakistan that will lead to the spread of Uyghur Turkic language in Pakistan, and then Pakistan can apply to join the TU.

 

[Desert Fox]

Behind The Wall - Uighurs ? precariously caught between two powers

By Adrienne Mong

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan – The community of Uighurs in Rawalpindi’s China Market is small and close-knit.

About 50 families have emigrated here from China’s Xinjiang Province over the past 30 years, focusing on cross-border trade and driving the transformation of Gordon College Road from a sleepy hamlet into a thriving commercial district now known as the China Market.

“We celebrate holidays, weddings, and funerals together,” said one Uighur businessman originally from Khotan, a city in China’s Xinjiang Province, and who would only give his first name, Muhammed.

But they don’t share everything.

“We don’t talk openly about our politics or our beliefs,” said another Uighur businessman and community leader who also wanted to remain anonymous. “We’re always suspicious of Chinese spies.”

Persecuted at home
The Uighurs are one of China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic minorities, but in recent years they’ve also become one of the most restive.

A Turkic-speaking people with an Islamic faith, the Uighurs live mostly in Xinjiang, but their presence has been overwhelmed by a steady influx of ethnic Han Chinese. Before the Communist Party took over China in 1949, the Han comprised only five percent of Xinjiang’s population; they are now closer to 40 percent, with the Uighurs totaling nine million out of the 20 million or so residents.

The Han dominance in Xinjiang has fueled tensions between the two groups. In addition to commanding the government bureaucracy and local economy, the Han also dictate religious and cultural norms. Uighurs wanting to succeed – particularly in government – must learn Mandarin and forsake Islam.

In the last decade, the practice of their religion has been severely curtailed. The call to prayer on loudspeakers is banned – as are madrassas (religious schools). The number of Uighurs permitted to travel to Mecca to perform the Haj is also strictly limited.

Beijing argues these restrictions are necessary for maintaining “social harmony” and eradicating a terrorist movement it claims is designed to achieve a separate Uighur state.

The Uighurs we met in Rawalpindi, for the most part, said they had left Xinijang because they wanted more freedom.

“We decided to settle here in the 1990s,” said Muhammed. “It was better to stay here in Pakistan than in China, because there was no religious freedom in China.”

Yet even as the Pakistanis have welcomed the Uighurs, this small community puts Islamabad in a delicate predicament vis-à-vis its giant neighbor.

The rise of Islamic militancy inside Pakistan has alarmed China, which suspects Uighur separatists from Xinjiang are hiding in Pakistani tribal areas. In fact, it’s believed that during the 1980s many Uighur militants were enrolled in madrassas in the South Asian nation and fought in the Soviet-Afghan War, and then again in 2001 when the current war began in Afghanistan.

These suspicions over the years have prompted Beijing to shut down the Karakorum Highway periodically, owing to concerns that the road has contributed to “the spread of Islamic ideology into Xinjiang and the movement of radical Uighur militants,” according to Ziad Haider, who has researched the highway’s impact on Islamic awareness among the Uighurs.

And harassed abroad…
Out of respect for its close friendship with Beijing, Islamabad has also taken action. The Uighurs in Rawalpindi said they are regularly brought in for questioning by Pakistani authorities. (Fear of harassment is the reason many traders did not want to be identified by name for this article.)

“They are worried that we are against the Chinese,” said the Uighur businessman and community leader whose family moved to Pakistan from Xinjiang in the 1980s and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He cited an example from three months ago when one trader was detained by local authorities for 15 days of interrogation.

Another described the rough treatment his elderly parents endured when they were crossing the border from Pakistan into China. “They were interrogated on suspicion of terrorism,” he practically shouted as he remembered the scene. “My father, 85 years old! My mother, 75 years old! Terrorists? It’s ridiculous.”

Suspected Uighur separatists have been not only been arrested but also killed in Pakistan. Earlier this year in May, Pakistan’s Interior Minister announced that his forces had killed a leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which Beijing has branded a terrorist group responsible for fomenting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.

“The [Uighur] community here has to respect our rules, our laws, and also the fact that we have an excellent relationship with China. So we don’t want this community to create any problems for that relationship,” said Riaz Khokar, a former foreign secretary of Pakistan who nevertheless denies the Uighurs in his country are targeted in any way.

‘China is our most important relationship’
The value of the alliance between Beijing and Islamabad lies in each side’s view of the other as a key bulwark against a common adversary: India. In addition to low-level skirmishes and long-running simmering tensions, Pakistan has fought three wars with India over the issue of Kashmir. China and India fought their own border war in 1962 and are regularly pitted as geopolitical and economic rivals jockeying for pole position in the region.

“China is our most important relationship,” said Khokar, who also served as Pakistan’s ambassador to China. “We attach the highest importance to it.”

Economic relations certainly attest to that importance. During Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Beijing in July, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said trade between the two countries could more than double from the current figure of $7 billion to $15 billion by 2015.

Much of the trade comes from large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, ranging from highways to mining to power plants. Last weekend, officials here announced they were preparing to award a contract to build a $2.2 billion hydropower project in Azad Kashmir to a Chinese subsidiary of the Three Gorges Corporation – without subjecting the company to the normal bidding process.

And then on Monday, it was reported that China was going to build a fifth nuclear reactor plant in Pakistan, fuelling worries in the U.S. and elsewhere that nuclear material could end up in the possession of Islamic extremists suspected along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

We can ‘live the life we want’
Given the significance of Pakistan-China relations, the Uighurs on Gordon College Road tread carefully in their adopted home.

In 1998, one Uighur trader attempted to politically organize his fellow men in Rawalpindi but met with little success. The would-be activist then disappeared, recalled the community leader. “We believe he was a Chinese plant who was trying to root out people who were anti-China.”

Their caution stepped up a notch last year after July riots in the Xinjiang provincial capital of Urumqi; Uighur businessmen were especially wary about traveling back to China. (Cross-border trade serves as not only their main source of income, but also the main source of information. The community closely monitors developments in Xinjiang, relying mostly on word of mouth and occasionally through the Internet.)

Those who would speak on record were circumspect about their public views.

Although his parents hail from Khotan, Abdul Rahman was born in Pakistan 40 years ago. He travels frequently to Xinjiang to buy textiles for his shop, the Khotan Silk House. “If I would have been born in China, I’m sure my life and opportunities would have been equally good,” he said.

Haji Abdul Hamid is grateful for the opportunities he’s had in Pakistan. “I worked as a civil servant in agriculture [in Xinjiang],” the slender 76-year-old told me in heavily-accented Mandarin as we sat beneath a setting sun off Gordon College Road. “After 40 years, I retired and went into business for myself.”

His business was cement. Hamid exported it from China to Pakistan, over the Karakorum Highway. Eighteen years ago, he moved to Rawalpindi to enjoy the fruits of his success.

But for many, “Life here is good” for a different reason. “We can practice Islam the way we want, live the life we want,” said Muhammed.

Chinese government shouldn't be too overly strict on the Uighurs Islamic practices, let them learn and speak their native language while also learning Mandarin. Let them go to Mosques and Madrassah's, i'm sure there is nothing wrong so long as the Uighurs don't practice extremism, which i doubt they do considering the Influence of Sufism amongst the Uighurs. But just for their sake Pakistan's doors are open for them and i'm glad they found Pakistan as a welcoming country that they can consider their home.

 

[HAIDER]

I think those who familiar with Rawalpindi Cantt, Sadar area knows many Chinese came and settled in this area during late 60s. They own many top businesses in the area, specially restaurants etc etc ....Now these speak good Urdu...lolz. But their trade links with China is still increasing .

 

[Desert Fox]

I think those who familiar with Rawalpindi Cantt, Sadar area knows many Chinese came and settled in this area during late 60s. They own many top businesses in the area, specially restaurants etc etc ....Now these speak good Urdu...lolz. But their trade links with China is still increasing .

I hope the Pakistani government does help to preserve the language, culture, and heritage of these Uighurs who have settled in Pakistan so they can keep in touch with their relatives in Xinjiang.

 

[HAIDER]

In near future Pakistanis will see more Chinese settler along trade routes toward waters and big cities .