What disasters has the Chinese communist regime brought upon the Uyghurs? (4)

The “July 5 Protest in Urumqi” in the summer of 2009 is believed to have been the result of Uyghur protests against unfair treatment of Uyghur workers at the Shuri Toy Factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong, on June 26 of the same year. Chinese state media reported at the time that two Uyghur workers were killed and more than 10 injured in the conflict at the factory, but social media said that more than 10 workers were killed and that the authorities did not deal with the problem fairly. But analysts believe that the cause of the incident is more complex.
Mr. Zhang Weiguo, one of the Chinese analysts interviewed by our radio station, said that the responsibility of the Chinese government for causing such a tragedy is heavy, especially since the first decade of the 21st century. The increase in negative propaganda about the Uyghurs in the Chinese media has increased hatred of the Uyghurs among the Chinese and has caused tragedies such as the “Shaoguan June 26” incident.
At the time, an independent researcher who closely monitored the Chinese government’s policy toward the Uyghurs, the founder of the “We Uyghur Network” and associate professor at the National University of Beijing, Professor Ilham Tohti, told foreign media outlets such as Free Asia that since the 1990s, the Chinese government has been increasingly “opening to the West” (i.e., western China), in the name of “helping the West,” more resources in the region have been transferred to Chinese provinces, Uyghurs have been excluded from development, and jobs in the region have been provided to Chinese settlers. Youth unemployment has increased, and Uyghurs’ livelihood opportunities have become increasingly narrow. In addition, Uyghur children have been forcibly sent to so-called “Xinjiang classes” in Chinese provinces to teach them the Chinese language, and the expansion of Chinese education under the name of “bilingual education,” which has been implemented since 2006, and Uyghur farmers have been transferred to companies and factories in Chinese provinces as “surplus labor.” A number of unequal factors, such as “cheap labor,” increased Uyghur discontent and led to the “July 5 Protest in Urumqi” in the summer of 2009.
Chinese state media reported that the continuation of the July 5, 2009 protests turned violent, with 197 people killed and more than 1,700 injured. According to China's Xinhua News Agency, martial law has been imposed in Urumqi, Kashgar, and other cities since July 6, and about 1,800 people have been arrested in the incident.
However, according to information obtained by Uyghur organizations abroad and independent media, the death toll is more than 1,000 and the number of missing is more than 10,000. Uyghurs in the diaspora and Uyghur support communities in various countries have protested the bloody suppression of the "Urumqi July 5 protests" by the Chinese government.
Wang Lichuan, the Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, and Li Jie, the party secretary of Urumqi, announced on television on July 6 that the July 5 incident was a terrorist attack instigated by foreign separatist forces, and urged Chinese citizens to defend themselves. As a result, on July 7, Chinese people carrying hammers and axes attacked Uyghurs in the streets, and the "incident" spread in August, such as "Uyghurs attacking Chinese citizens with needles," and the conflict between Uyghurs and Chinese became more intense. On September 3 and 7, Chinese citizens carrying hammers attacked Uyghurs in the streets, injuring and even killing them. Foreign reporters interviewed a group of Uyghur intellectuals, such as Ilham Tohti in Beijing and Gheyret Niaz, a reporter for the Xinjiang Legal Journal, to respond to the government’s positions and pointed out that the Chinese government was responsible for this series of incidents. Although they demanded that the government publicly clarify the problems in its Uyghur policy and demand that existing problems be solved, the Chinese government, instead of solving existing problems after the incident, forced Nur Bekri, the then head of the Uyghur Autonomous Region, to speak on screen and admit that the “July 5 Urumqi Incident” was caused by the bloody incident in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, on June 26. But Nur Bekri said that “Uyghur separatists led by Rabia Kadir from abroad had a hand in it.” The government accused Uyghur websites such as Uyghur Biz, Diarym, and Shabnam of “spreading seditious information” about the bloody incident in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, on June 26. At that time, the Chinese government closed more than 200 Uyghur websites, arrested their owners and writers, and cut off the Internet, regular telephones, and external communications in East Turkistan for several months. More than 1,000 Uyghur intellectuals, including Girte Niyaz, were arrested and given harsh sentences. After the “Urumqi Massacre of July 5, 2009,” the Chinese government apparently removed Wang Lichuan and transferred Zhang Chunshan, the governor of Hunan Province, who was described as “soft and moderate in policy,” as the party secretary of the Uyghur Autonomous Region. However, in May 2010, the Chinese government held the so-called “Xinjiang Work Conference,” which divided East Turkistan’s natural resources among 19 cities. Regional in China. Uyghur protests against these unequal policies continued in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. Among them, an article titled "At least 10 violent incidents were reported in 2013, 9 of which occurred in Xinjiang" was published publicly in the Chinese "21st Century Economy Journal" on December 29, 2013. It revealed to the press the major incident in Beijing, the "Tiananmen Jinsuichow car explosion on December 28" and 9 other incidents in Xinjiang, and stated that a number of Chinese police officers were killed in these incidents. According to Chinese news, the "Siriq Boya incident on April 23" occurred in April 2013 in Maralbeshi, the "Lukchun incident on June 26" occurred in June 2013, and the "Yuqiqi incident on August 20" occurred in Qaglig in August 2013. In November 2013, “the attack on the Seriq Boya police station in November 2013” ​​in Maralbeshi, and the “Saybag incident” in December 2013 in Kashgar Prefecture, were recalled. After recalling the above-mentioned incidents, the police chief’s statement “We know for sure that our task will be very difficult” was included. In 2014, during the “Yarken Elishqu and Khangdi villages incident on July 28,” the Chinese government carried out another massacre in these two villages through the armed forces. The Chinese Xinhua News Agency used the phrase “this is a pre-planned terrorist act” in the news. Chinese media at the time estimated the death toll in the crackdown at “nearly a hundred” and announced the arrest of 250 people. According to information obtained by Uyghur organizations abroad, the number of Uyghurs killed in this incident is about 3,000.
After the “Urumqi Massacre of July 5,” instead of resolving the causes of the series of protests in the region, the Chinese government used the armed forces to suppress almost all of these protests in the name of “fighting terrorism.” Professor Ilham Tohti, an associate professor of economics at the National Peking University, was arrested from his home in Beijing on January 15, 2014, and tried by the Urumqi Intermediate Court on September 22 of the same year for his persistent criticism of the Uyghur grievances caused by the Chinese government’s policies against the Uyghurs. He was convicted of “sedition and separatism” and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Since 2014, the Chinese government has carried out widespread arrests and punishments targeting Uyghurs in the region. The campaign began in the spring of 2017, when it was revealed that the Chinese government had imprisoned nearly 3 million Uyghurs in detention camps under the name of so-called “re-education centers.”
Since September 2017, the Chinese government has ordered the education sector in East Turkistan to abolish the teaching of the Uyghur language.