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1 1 (July 13, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdaqc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: &~ ~ riE SE .$rCh &~ ~ ~ p\w -- , gnom goo mppm qq\ , q I as 11LULANJILiN, Updated July 13, 2020 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) far 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. The XUAR is a strategic region for the PRC's Belt and Road Initiative, which includes Chinese-backed infrastructure projects and energy development in neighboring Central and South Asia. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::i ~ii::ii: : :ii : : : ::: :1i~ : : .: : i: ~i: .1- Uruinqi 'N,. .5 * * ,.~ . ~q.: K~493f CH NA 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 450% 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. 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 Imm (convicted in 2010), who had managed a Uyghur language website and participated in the 2009 protests. In September 2017, former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, 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. Since 2017, in tandem with a new national 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 dress and grooming, practices of traditional Uyghur customs, and adherence to Islamic dietary laws (halal). Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang reportedly have been demolished or Sinicized, whereby Islamic motifs and Arabic writings have been removed. There have been reports of a government campaign to forcefully reduce birth rates among Turkic Muslims in the region. Beginning in 2016, the newly appointed Communist Party Secretary of the XUAR, former Tibet Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, stepped up security and surveillance measures aimed at the Uyghur population. Such actions included the installation of thousands of neighborhood police kiosks, more intrusive monitoring of Internet use, and the collection of biometric data for identification purposes. The central government sent an estimated one million officials and state workers from outside Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in Uyghur homes to assess their compliance with government policies. By some estimates, since 2017, Xinjiang authorities have arbitrarily detained 1.5 million Turkic Muslims, mostly Uyghurs and a smaller number of Kazakhs, in reeducation camps. The facilities also have held many prominent Uyghur intellectuals. PRC officials describe the facilities as vocational education and training centers where trainees study Chinese, learn job skills, undergo de- extremization and are to be cured of ideological infection. Some may have engaged in religious and ethnic cultural practices that the government now perceives as extremist, or as manifesting strongly religious views or thoughts that could lead to the spread of religious

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