The Uyghurs, a majority-Muslim people who mostly live in East Turkestan, are facing persecution and genocide at the hands of the Chinese State. More than a million people are interned in camps, where torture, abuse and rape are reported to be taking place.
China’s propaganda has stepped up following a series of news stories internationally about their treatment of the Uyghur population. State media recently released a series of short films subtitled in English, titled Embracing a New Life, featuring Uyghur women narrating, in Mandarin Chinese, their “empowering” experiences after “re-education.”
According to a report last year, women have been involuntarily fitted with intrauterine contraceptives or coerced into receiving sterilisation surgeries, even where they had fewer than the permitted two children. Government documents showed that women in some rural minority communities in the region have received frequent mandatory gynaecological exams and bi-monthly pregnancy tests from local health officials.
The Chinese state is looking to portray its attempted eugenics campaign as liberation-from-above for women trapped in religious communities in Xinjiang. This is state propaganda for international audiences intended to chime with much of the western propaganda around Islam and the war on terror.
We do not trust the Chinese state to bring women’s liberation to a minority it is attempting to destroy!
• Get involved with the Uyghur Solidarity Campaign: www.uyghursolidarityuk.org / www.twitter.com/CampaignUyghur
