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1 1 (November 19, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbpr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: - .......... 10 gm 0 ILI Updated November 19, 2019 Uyghurs in China Uyghurs (also spelled Uighurs) are an ethnic group living primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) northwest. Uyghurs speak a Turkic language and practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam. The XUAR, often referred to simply as Xinjiang (pronounced SHIN-jyahng), is a provincial-level administrative region which comprises about one-sixth of China's total land area and borders eight countries. The region is rich in minerals, produces over 80% of China's cotton, and has China's largest coal and natural gas reserves and a fifth of its oil reserves. Beijing hopes to promote Xinjiang as a key link in the PRC's Belt and Road Initiative, which includes Chinese-backed infrastructure projects and energy development in neighboring Central and South Asia. >4 C K~a~ Sources: CRS using U.S. Department of State Boundaries; Esri; Global Administrative Areas; DeLorme; NGA. All or parts of the area comprising Xinjiang have been under the political control or influence of Chinese, Mongols, and Russians for long periods of the region's documented history, along with periods of Turkic or Uyghur rule. Uyghurs played a role in the establishment of two short-lived East Turkestan Republics in the 1930s and 1940s. The PRC asserted control over Xinjiang in 1949 and established the XUAR in 1955. Uyghurs once were the predominant ethnic group in the XUAR; they now constitute roughly 45% of the region's population of 24 million, or around 10.5 million, as many Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China, have migrated there, particularly to the provincial capital, Urumqi. Many Uyghurs complain that Hans have benefitted disproportionately from economic development in Xinjiang. Hum -- ,an R ig1ht s I ssue s Since an outbreak of demonstrations and ethnic unrest in 2009 and clashes involving Uyghurs and Xinjiang security personnel that spiked between 2013 and 2015, PRC leaders have sought to stabilize the XUAR through more intensive security measures aimed at combatting terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. PRC official data indicates that criminal arrests in Xinjiang increased from approximately 14,000 in 2013 to 228,000 in 2017. Two prominent Uyghurs serving life sentences for state security crimes are Ilham Tohti (convicted in 2014), a Uyghur economics professor who had maintained a website related to Uyghur issues, and Gulmira Imin (convicted in 2010), who had managed a Uyghur language website and participated in the 2009 demonstrations. In September 2017, former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Tiyip, an ethnic Uyghur, was convicted of separatism in a secret trial and received a death sentence with a two year reprieve. His status is unknown. In tandem with a new national religious policy referred to as Sinicization, XUAR authorities have instituted measures to assimilate Uyghurs into Han Chinese society and reduce the influences of Uyghur, Islamic, and Arabic cultures and languages. The XUAR government enacted a law in 2017 that prohibits expressions of extremification, and placed restrictions, often imposed arbitrarily, upon face veils, beards and other grooming, the practice of some traditional Uyghur customs, and adherence to Islamic dietary laws (halal). Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang reportedly have been demolished as part of what the government calls a mosque rectification campaign; others have been Sinicized-minarets have been taken down, onion domes have been replaced by traditional Chinese roofs, and Islamic motifs and Arabic writings have been removed. China's new religious policies also have placed greater restrictions on the Hui, another Muslim minority group in China who number around 11 million, although these have been less severe than those placed on the Uyghurs. The Hui are more geographically dispersed and culturally assimilated than the Uyghurs, are generally physically indistinguishable from Hans, and do not speak a non- Chinese language. With the apparent strong backing of Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, beginning in 2016, the new Communist Party Secretary to the XUAR, former Tibet Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, stepped up security measures aimed at the Uyghur population. Such actions have included the installation of thousands of neighborhood police kiosks, more intrustive monitoring of Internet use, and the collection of biometric data for identification purposes. In addition, the central government has sent an estimated one million officials and state workers from outside Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in the homes of Uyghurs to assess their loyalty to the Communist Party.

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