All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
The Complicity of Heritage: Cultural Heritage and Genocide in the Uyghur Region
This report highlights how China’s actions constitute what UNESCO calls “strategic cultural cleansing”, through systematic destruction of cultural heritage and targeting people on the basis of their ethnic affiliation.
Islam Dispossessed: China’s Persecution of Uyghur Imams and Religious Figures
Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China) have long endured repressive Chinese government policies targeting their cultural identity. Religious leaders in particular have been frequent subjects of state-directed abuse. This report presents new evidence detailing the extent to which Uyghur religious figures have been targeted over time.
Uyghur imams targeted in China's Xinjiang crackdown
China has imprisoned or detained at least 630 imams and other Muslim religious figures since 2014 in its crackdown in the Xinjiang region, according to new research by a Uyghur rights group. Many of the detained clerics faced broad charges like "propagating extremism", "gathering a crowd to disturb social order", and "inciting separatism". According to testimony from relatives, the real crimes behind these charges are often things like preaching, convening prayer groups, or simply acting as an imam.
“Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots” - China’s Crimes against Humanity
This report outlines the evidence for the conclusion that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity against the Turkic Muslim population.
Cultural erasure: Tracing the destruction of Uyghur and Islamic spaces in Xinjiang
The Chinese government has embarked on a systematic campaign to rewrite the cultural heritage of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China by desecrating or “rectifying” mosques and indigenous sacred sites. This report maps over 900 mosques and other important Uyghur religious-cultural sites across Xinjiang, analyses their condition before and after 2017, and then used statistical extrapolation to estimate the full extent of their destruction and alteration.
Xinjiang Detention and Cultural Sites Interactive Map
ASPI researchers have located, mapped and analysed over 380 suspected detention facilities in Xinjiang that have been built or expanded since 2017, making it the most comprehensive dataset on Xinjiang’s detention system in the world. The project has also located and analysed hundreds of mosques and other important Uyghur and Islamic cultural sites in Xinjiang and assessed how many have been demolished or damaged since 2017. Both datasets are viewable on this interactive map.
Devastating Blows - Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang
This report details for the first time the complex architecture of law, regulation, and policy in Xinjiang that denies Uighurs religious freedom.
China’s anti-terrorism legislation and repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region
This report describes the new anti-terrorism provisions in Chinese law and Amnesty International’s concerns about these provisions and the crackdown against “terrorist, separatist and illegal religious activities” currently underway in the XUAR.