SEGOVIA – An ethnic cleansing is currently taking place in China against the Uighur Muslims. They are being abducted and incarcerated arbitrarily in what China calls “training centers” to try and get rid of the so-called extremist ideas they carry. China is secular and does not accept the practice of any religion, despite Article 36 in its legislation clearly stating that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy the freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion”, a passage brought to my attention by IE LLBBIR student Ruby Hawari.
The mentioning of this legislation is relevant in the sense that these camps aren’t an act of omission from Chinese authorities, but rather deliberate orders from the authorities themselves. And thus, there seems to be no respect for the rule of law, with the issue not just being a violation of human rights, but rather a symptom of a corrupt legal system.
After thoroughly researching the matter, I found that the so-called extremist issues that they try to rid people of are basically a mask of their fear of minorities that defy the Communist Party and their fear of the separatists’ protest in Xinjiang. I cannot help but notice how similar contemporary China’s actions are to Nazi Germany’s, with the evident similarity being the targeting of minorities. Nazi Germany targeted Jews and placed them in concentration camps, which is what China is currently doing to the Uighurs.
China heavily brainwashes its population using propaganda, which was a tool prominently used by Hitler. I would say they both considerably have the same power in the sense that the Chinese authorities are concealing their targeting of minorities, with most of the population and the world unaware of what is happening. There has not been enough media coverage due to the fact that people are not allowed to visit the facilities in Xinjiang to which the ethnic minorities are transported. However, the research has provided us with evidence of China spying, abducting on their targets.
The same mentality can be seen in both cases, with the minorities considered as inferiors that must be eliminated. Uighur Muslims are the inferiors in China’s case, as the government deems seculars as superior to any individual who practices religion. The extremity of the Uighurs’ case is evident in the fact that they are moved to prisons in masses to be tortured, executed, and have their organs harvested for organ transplants to fuel China’s thriving market for human organs.
The organ harvesting aspect of the abductions of the Uighurs has been investigated by the China Tribunal which, by deduction, confirms the rest of the ‘allegations’. China has previously admitted to the practice of harvesting the organs of executed prisoners but claimed to have stopped in 2014, which is not the case, since there has been a great influx of human organs from unknown donors, and the disappearance of Uighur Muslims seems to fit right in.
Nonetheless, another similarity can be drawn from the basis to which they detain and eliminate their targets. Physical attributes are used in both cases, with Hitler using the idea that people with dark hair and eyes are inferior to those with light hair and eyes to justify eliminating them. The same applies to contemporary China, in which the authorities are going after the physical attributes of wearing a headscarf and having a grown beard and are considering them inferior to those who are ethnically Chinese and are secular. Thus, these attributes are used to detain and eliminate the minority.
