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1 1 (June 22, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdozz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: xa S 1,k 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 ofChina's (PRC's) far northwest. Uyghurs speak a Turkic language and practice a moderate fonnof 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 totalland area andborders eight countries. The region is rich in minerals, produces over 80% of China's cotton, andhas China's largest coaland naturalgas reserves and afifth 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. 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 underthe politicalcontrolor influence ofChinese, Mongols, and Russians for long periods of the region's documented history, along with periods of Turkic or Uyghurrule. Uyghurs played arole in the establishment of two short-livedEast Turkestan Republics in the 1930s and 1940s. The PRC asserted control over Xinjiang in 1949 and es tablished the XUARin 1955. Uyghurs once were the predominant ethnic groupin the XUAR, they now constitute roughly 45% ofthe 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 Hanshavebenefitted disproportionately fromeconomic development in Xinjiang. Human Rigkts issues Since an outbreakof demonstrations and ethnic unrestin 2009, and clashes involving Uyghurs andXinjiang security pers onnel that spiked between 2013 and 2015, PRC leaders have soughtto stabilize the XUARthrough more intensive security measures aimed at combatting terrorism separatismand religious extremism. PRC official data indicates thatcriminal 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 IlhamTohti(convictedin 2014), a Uyghur economics professor who had maintained a website related to Uyghur issues, and Gulmira Imin (convictedin 2010), who had managed a Uyghur language website and participatedin the 2009 protests. In September 2017, former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, an ethnic Uyghur, was convicted of separatismin a secret trial and received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. His status is unknown. Since 2017, in tandemwith anewnationalpolicy referred to as Sinicization, XUARauthorities have instituted measures to assimilate Uyghurs into Han Chinese society and reduce the influences ofUyghur, Islamic, and Arabic cultures and languages. The XUARgovernment enacted a law in 2017 that prohibits expressions ofextremification, and placed restrictions, often imposed arbitrarily, upon face veils,beards and other grooming, the practice of traditional Uyghur customs, and adherenceto 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 havebeen Sinicized-minarets have been taken down, onion domes have beenreplacedby traditional Chineseroofs, and Islamic motifs and Arabic writings have been removed. China's new religious policies also have placed greater restrictions on the Hui, another Muslimminority group in China who number around 11 million, although thesehave been less severe than those placed on the Uyghurs. TheHui are more geographically dispersed and culturally assimilated than the Uyghurs, are generally physically indistinguishable fromHans, and do not speakanon- Chinese language. With the apparent strong backing of Communist Party General Secretary XiJinping, beginning in 2016, the new Communist Party Secretary of 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 intrusive monitoring of Internet use, and the collectionofbiometric datafor identification purposes. The central government sent an estimatedone million officials and state workers fromoutside Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in the homes of Uyghurs to assess theirloyalty tothe CommunistParty. * yj~*: (' N- NA Updated June 22,2020

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