How Detainment of Uyghur Muslims Can Lead to Violent Extremism

Source: AP Feed News (2018)

By: JulieAnn Sickell, Ahmad Mohibi

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticizes the Chinese government for the enduring detainment and forced ‘re-education’ of Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goal of the re-education camps is to prevent extremism and provide vocational training. Detainees learn Mandarin, how to assemble electronics, and receive lessons on Chinese laws and the Constitution.

More than 10 million Uyghurs reside in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Sources estimate anywhere between tens of thousands to over one million Uyghurs are detained in re-education camps. The Chinese government has deliberately abducted and tortured Uyghurs and destroyed their mosques to the ground.

China has a long history of re-education programs. Reform through labor (laogai) and re-education through labor (laojiao) were phased out in the 2000s as President Xi Jinping found them inappropriate for a modern society. However, a new re-education emerged to convert Falun Gong supporters called transformation through education. Current re-education programs in Xinjiang resemble the transformation through education programs China has previously enacted.

Uyghurs Muslims are treated as ‘terrorists’ and the rivals of the state. Numerous Uyghurs are trapped and have been deliberately quarantined from the socio-economic opportunities as well as political representation in the government. The problem dates back to the annexation of Xinjiang in 1950 to become officially part of Communist China since this annexation Uyghurs have been subjected to various human rights violations on the basis of ethnicity.

Multiple Chinese officials view Islam as an ‘illness’ or ideology that needs to be removed in order to prevent terrorism from spreading. Outrage over the clash in Urumqi in 2009 and the Kunming attack in 2014 provides further basis for ethnic-profiling of Uyghurs by the CCP. Both events were centered on ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China.

The evolution of these attacks from mutual violence between Han and Uyghurs to the slaughter of 29 Han Chinese by Uyghurs allows the Chinese Communist Party justification for the creation of detention camps. By letting fears of instability control their actions, the CCP falls victim to Islamophobia.

When confronted about wrongful imprisonment in Xinjiang by the United Nations and the United States, China lashed back with adamant denial and critiques. The UN released a report expressing concern over the imprisonment of Uyghurs in the name of countering terrorism. The Chinese Communist Party denied that the existence of the re-education camps and once the report was released, they critiqued the United Nations for accusing them without proper facts.

A similar confrontation occurred between the United States and China. US lawmakers called for the officials involved with the re-education camps to be sanctioned. Hua Chunying from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not outright deny the existence of the re-education camps but critiqued the United States human rights record to defend the CCP’s actions.

The United States and the United Nations must continue to pressure China to end the detainment of the Uyghur people. China will continue to deny accusations until legitimate action is taken such as the sanctions initially suggested by US lawmakers.

The best option for the United States is to continue to encourage China to use the rule of law and to respect human rights or the repression of the Uyghur people will lead to extremism, not lessen it. Decades of repression surmounting in re-education camps provides a breeding ground for extremist thought.

The Naxalite Insurgency

On October 30, 2018, a journalist and two policemen were killed in an ambush in Eastern Indian state of Chattisgarh. This attack is particularly notable given that it was carried out by the Naxalites, a group who has been responsible for a series of deadly attacks carried out against the Indian government, including one in 2010 which killed 76 police officers.

Unlike many other insurgent groups that are fighting in the 21st century, the Naxalites see themselves as fighting a Maoist struggle for liberation. To understand why a communist insurgent group still exists in India, it is important to understand the story of the Naxalites. The Naxalites emerged in the 1960s, when an aristocrat turned revolutionary named Charu Majumdar lead a branch of the Indian Communist Party. Unlike the rest of the Communist party, which generally supported the Marxist Leninism of the Soviet Union, Majumdar looked toward Mao with an emphasis on organizing the peasantry into a fighting force capable of withstanding oppression. This was best exemplified with one of their major slogans: “China’s Chairman is our Chairman.”

These efforts of rural organization culminated in the Naxalbari uprising of 1967, when groups of sharecroppers rebelled against landholders over harassment in the famed tea growing area of Darjeeling. Majumdar was soon arrested and later died in prison. With his death, the hope of a unified movement was lost as well. With the death of Mao in 1971, the rebels also lost a strong pillar of moral, (and possibly material) support as the People’s Republic of China began the gradual process of economic liberalization. These factors lead to a splintering of the movement, with over 140 groups claiming to be the rightful representatives of Maoist thought in India in the 1980s.

Beginning in the 1980s, however, violent Maoism began seeing a resurgence in Eastern India, especially in the provinces of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This is largely due to the importance of growth of mining in these areas. This has been driven by a booming demand for coal and iron ore to fuel factories in both India and China. Many of the inhabitants of these areas have failed to see the profits of the industry, and work in dangerous conditions for little pay.

This sense of alienation is furthered by the fact that many of the inhabitants of these areas are Adivasi, a general term for members of indigenous groups in India. The assortment of tribes who inhabited these areas long lived as subsistence farmers and were left relatively disconnected from the rest of India. The mining boom deprived them of their previous livelihoods and thereby forces them to work in the mines for low pay. This makes them especially vulnerable to the pull of organizations such as the Naxalites.