Who are they?
China says their number is just 15 million, yet autonomous assessments of Uyghurs put the number higher of 35 million, living in the Chinese "Xinjiang", which in Chinese signifies "new boundary" and it was called "East Turkestan".
"Turkestan" signifies the place that is known for the Turks. The Muslim Uyghurs are Turkish clans or tribes who have lived in that locale since old times, and the relations among them and China were recognized by on and off conflicts over hundreds of years, and the language verbally expressed by the Uyghurs is written in Arabic up until this point.
Where is East Turkestan?
Xinjiang or East Turkestan is located in northwest China, bordered by seven countries, most of which were within the Soviet Union before it disintegrated, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Pakistan, with an area of about 1.8 million square kilometres, almost twice the size of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
The region enjoys a distinguished geographical location, which represented a major part of the ancient Silk Road, and this was one of the most important reasons for China's insistence on occupying the region and considering it as part of its lands, in addition to its fertile land and its diverse and large mineral resources.
When did China occupy and annex East Turkestan?
The Uyghurs established a strong kingdom that lasted more than ten centuries until China managed to invade East Turkestan in 1759 AD, but the Uyghur revolutions did not stop until they were able to defeat the Chinese occupier, and again the invasion repeated about a hundred years later, and the Uyghurs were again able to triumph and expel the Chinese.
In the previous century, the Uyghurs managed to declare East Turkestan independence several times, the last of which was from 1944 to 1949, but Communist China in the 1950s invaded the territory and changed its name to Xinjiang and began to pursue a policy aimed at completely wiping out the Muslim identity of the Uyghurs.
What is China doing there?
Since China invaded East Turkestan and added its lands in 1950 under its name Xinjiang, that is, the "new frontier," Beijing has pursued a crackdown on Muslim Uyghurs through which it aims not only to erase the identity of Muslim Uyghurs but also to change the demographic composition of the region.
Given the nature of the Communist regime in China, it was and remains difficult to know the reality of the situation on the ground in Xinjiang or East Turkestan, but in the past few weeks, leaks of Chinese government documents have aroused global outrage on the part of human rights and international groups, and the Uyghurs issue has become the forefront News headlines around the world.
The most prominent thing that China has done in the region is to prevent any manifestation of Islam, such as building mosques, launching a beard for men, or covering the entire body for women, banning halal food, forcing them to eat and sell pork and wine in their shops, Uyghur language education is banned, they can not have an Islamic wedding or ceremony, forcing them to labour hard work after confiscating their land and property in addition to forcing the Uyghurs to download an application on their phones through which the Chinese authorities can know the location of the person all the time and many more harsh measures.
From a demographic standpoint, China has transferred and resettled millions of "Han", the largest ethnicity in China, and recent reports indicate that the Uyghurs are on the way to becoming a minority within their home region in favour of the Han.
The Concentration Camps!!!
Be that as it may, but the most dangerous step, according to international leaks and reports, is what China calls the "Uyghur rehabilitation camps" and there are about 1-3 million people, who are forced to abandon their faith and swear allegiance to the Communist Party of China and chanting chants and songs in the Mandarin language "Chinese language".
China legitimizes those camps by worrying about the “separatist tendencies” of the Uyghurs, which it sees as a threat to its territorial integrity. The idea of these camps, although they are contrary to all human rights conventions in the world.
China isn't happy with its strategies inside these camps, but also monitors all those in it through cameras in the streets, workplaces and homes, as it monitors residents abroad from Uyghurs, whether they are science students, residents or travellers for any other purpose.
