Ilham Tohti, Uighur Scholar Jailed in China, Is Nominated for Rights Award
He was chosen by the Martin Ennals Foundation for trying to promote dialogue in the troubled Xinjiang region of China.
Visa Rejection Flap Shows China Wants Tighter Grip On Muslim Far West
Beijing has pressured India into canceling the visas for a pair of independence activists from Xinjiang.
After Shootout, China Says Uighur Militants a Threat to Indonesia
Ethnic Uighur militants are increasing their presence in Indonesia, China's Foreign Ministry said after two Uighurs were kill by Indonesia security forces.
China Premier Urges More Efforts in Restive Uighur Heartland
China's violence-prone region of Xinjiang needs to make more efforts at development to ensure young people have "something to do and money to earn."
China Acknowledges Killing 28, Accusing Them of Role in Mine Attack
The Chinese authorities had killed 28 people suspected of taking part in an attack on a coal mine in the country’s turbulent western frontier.
Conversation
11.19.15
Is China a Credible Partner in Fighting Terror?
In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said, “China is also a victim of terrorism....
Islamic State Claim of Hostage Killing Complicates China’s Terror Debate
China vowed "justice" for a Chinese national kidnapped and apparently slain by the Islamic State.
Chinese security forces kill 17 in Xinjiang: Radio Free Asia
China has appealed for the international community to provide more help in its campaign against Xinjiang militants following the attacks in Paris.
China to Push Cultural 'Blending' in Xinjiang Stability Push
China will push the study of Mandarin and the "blending" of different races as part of a new stability push in the troubled far western region of Xinjiang.
In a Region Disturbed by Ethnic Tensions, China Keeps Tight Lid on a Massacre
Armed with only knives, the assailants struck at the coal mine in the dead of night.
Who Are Uighurs? A Look at Group from Restive China Region
A primer on the Uighurs, the repression they face in China and their presence abroad.
Media
07.21.15
China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman
A woman’s solitary voice, earthy and low, rises above the seated worshipers. More than 100 women stand, bow, and touch their foreheads to the floor as a female imam leads evening prayers at a women-only mosque during the first...
China’s War Against One American Journalist
Shohret Hoshur’s brothers are being disappeared by the Chinese government. Beijing is trying to silence an American reporter by sentencing his brothers to China’s gulag.
Civil servants, students, teachers in Xinjiang banned from fasting during Ramadan
China bans fasting for Ramadan and orders restaurants to stay open in Xinjiang.
Caixin Media
05.19.15
Why Xinjiang’s Economy Is Sputtering
It has been almost one year since a terrorist bombing in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, shocked the nation and brought economic woes and social conflicts in the largely Uighur-populated area into the spotlight again.
I arrived...
Searching for Identity in China’s Outer Lands
“ ‘China’s Outer Lands’ is about people instinctively looking for their own identity, between conformity or originality or autonomy or dependence,” Mr. Sakamaki said. “It’s natural, it’s happening in not only China, it’s everywhere.”
Wild Pigeon
“The underlying theme I heard when talking to people was that how you interpret things is how they will be, so its best to look at the bright side of things. You don’t mention bad dreams, or you try to interpret them in a positive way. People...
The NYRB China Archive
04.13.15
China: What the Uighurs See
from New York Review of BooksXinjiang is one of those remote places whose frequent mention in the international press stymies true understanding. Home to China’s Uighur minority, this vast region of western China is mostly known for being in a state of...
Features
02.04.15
The City of Urumqi Prohibition on Wearing Items That Mask the Face or Robe the Body
A Proclamation from the Standing Committee of the Urumqi People’s Congress
The “Regulation banning the wearing of items that mask the face or robe the...
Obama’s Anti-Islamic State Push May Be Helping China Crack Down on Its Uighurs
en President Barack Obama in September secured passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring nations to prevent their citizens from traveling abroad to participate in acts of terrorism, it was mostly hailed as a landmark achievement to...
Turks Are Held in Plot to Help Uighurs Leave China
Shanghai police arrested 10 Turkish citizens and two Chinese citizens and accused them of providing altered Turkish passports to terrorist suspects from the western region of Xinjiang.
The Colorful Propaganda of Xinjiang
The government believes religion breeds terror and has been trying to control religious expression in the region by imposing rules on the Uighur community. Critics say it is exacerbating the terror problem.
China Has Just Banned the Burqa in Its Biggest Muslim City
Moves like these are likely to further alienate an already disenchanted minority group—the Uighurs, who feel their culture and economy is being overrun by Han Chinese.
China Sentences 8 to Death for Attacks in Xinjiang
The Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in the capital of Xinjiang also handed out suspended death sentences to five others, China Central Television said, without mentioning when the trials were held.
Books
11.12.14
The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History
For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet—have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing’s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past.
Unrest in China Leaves 22 Dead Following Xinjiang Attack
A new ethnic clash in the restive region of Xinjiang, on China’s central Asian frontier, saw 22 people killed after Uighur assailants attacked Han Chinese merchants at a wholesale food market near the border with Kyrgyzstan.
China Launches Massive Rural ‘Surveillance’ Project to Watch Over Uighurs
They arrived at the fringes of China's modern day empire in early March, setting up base in a family planning center with riot shields, helmets and two sharp 6-foot spears propped up inside the front door.
Chinese Court Sentences Uighur Scholar to Life in Separatism Case
A university professor who has come to symbolize peaceful resistance by ethnic Uighurs to Chinese policies was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of separatism in the western region of Xinjiang.
Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Sentenced—A Moderate Silenced
Though he has always advocated nonviolence and says he opposes separatism, Mr Tohti appears to be paying a price for a series of episodes of violent unrest involving Uighurs.
The NYRB China Archive
09.22.14
‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uighurs’
from New York Review of BooksIn my series of interviews with Chinese intellectuals, there is an empty chair for Ilham Tohti, the economist and Uighur activist....
The NYRB China Archive
09.08.14
From China to Jihad?
from New York Review of BooksIt’s a very long way from China’s arid Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in the country’s far northwest to its semi-tropical borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Burma in the south, and then it’s another precarious distance from there, down rivers and...
Fabled Uighur Princess Coming to Chinese Television as a Cartoon
Animators in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen are creating a 104-episode cartoon series loosely based on a historical Qing Dynasty imperial consort, a Uighur woman who is shrouded in myth.
China Says 8 Executed in Western Region; Charges Stem From Separatist Attacks
The executions were the latest in a succession of displays of might and resolve by the Chinese government, which is trying to extinguish increasingly violent discontent among Uighurs in Xinjiang.
The NYRB China Archive
08.21.14
Wang Lixiong and Woeser: A Way Out of China’s Ethnic Unrest?
from New York Review of BooksWoeser and Wang Lixiong are two of China’s best-known thinkers on the government’s policy toward ethnic minorities. With violence in Tibet and Xinjiang now almost a monthly occurrence, I met them at their apartment in Beijing to talk about the...
Media
08.07.14
Beards and Muslim Headscarves Banned From Buses In One Xinjiang City
A city in China’s remote western Xinjiang region has temporarily banned men with beards and women with Muslim headscarves from taking public...
China Imposes Intrusive Rules on Uighurs in Xinjiang
Black-clad, helmet-wearing paramilitary forces were seen in several locations in recent days, stopping Uighur men to check their IDs and scroll through the playlists of their phones.
China Charges Leading Uighur Professor with Separatism
Although not unexpected, analysts say the decision to criminally prosecute Ilham Tohti is a clear signal that the Communist Party leadership under President Xi Jinping will broach no criticism of its increasingly hard-line ethnic policies.
22 Attackers Shot Dead in Xinjiang Violence as Extremists Wielding Axes Targeted Civilians
Attack on government office and police station follows series of violent incidents in restive province.
Photo Gallery
07.12.14
Soccer on the Silk Road
from Tencent QQAs the World Cup draws to a close, we present a photo essay by Chinese photographer Zhang Xinmin exploring the game of soccer along the Silk Road in Xinjiang, where it has a special place in Uighur education and culture. China’s forays into...
China Denies Entry to an American Scholar Who Spoke Up for a Uighur Colleague
When Elliot Sperling landed in Beijing, he found himself dragged by border officers back to the same jet that he had flown in on, despite the fact he had arrived with a valid one-year tourist visa.
China Bans Xinjiang Officials From Observing Ramadan Fast
Activists have accused Beijing of exaggerating the threat from Uighur separatists to justify a crackdown on the Uighurs’ religious and cultural freedoms.
Web Preaches Jihad to China's Muslim Uighurs
China says the Internet and social media incite terrorism among Uighur minority.
China’s Two Problems with the Uyghurs
Beijing has two problems with the Uyghurs, the Turkic-speaking, Central Asian people from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. One problem is terrorism; the other problem is civil rights.
Residents Try to Move On After Terrorist Attack in China
By the time the vehicles exploded at opposite ends of the block, 43 people were dead and more than 90 people were wounded, according to an updated casualty list.
Media
05.19.14
One Uighur Man’s Journey in Two Cultures
Over the past two months, the relationship between China’s estimated 10 million Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people, most of whom follow some form of Sunni Islam,...
Media
04.23.14
Welcome to Uighur Web—Now Watch What You Say
China’s Internet is vast, with millions of sites and more than 618 million users. But nested within that universe is a tiny...
After 3/1: The Dangers of China’s Ethnic Divide
The pressure posed by ethnic unrest is the biggest story on the Chinese horizon, and that struggle—the pressure from below, and the response it will bring—just moved into the foreground.
China’s Muslims Will Pay a Heavy Price for the Kunming Knife Attacks
There’s no evidence that the Kunming station attack had any connection to global jihad, but that won’t prevent a crackdown.
After Train Station Massacre Labeled ‘China's 9/11,’ a Wide Search for Culprits
Although no details about the identities of the assailants have been released, state-run newswire Xinhua attributed the Kunming railway station massacre to “terrorists from Xinjiang.”
China Charges Prominent Uighur Professor with Separatism
The government’s case against Ilham Tohti is the latest sign of its hardening stance on dissent in Xinjiang, where unrest in the past year has killed more than 100, including several police, according to state media.
Media
03.03.14
‘Enemies of Humanity’ — China Debates Who’s to Blame For the Kunming Attack
It’s already being called “3.01,” or “three oh one,” a date that will likely burn in China’s collective memory for years to come. According to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, on the evening of March 1, around 9:00 p.m. Beijing time, ten or...
How Wrong is Your Time Zone?
All of China’s clocks are set to Beijing time. In defiance of the government, many members of the region’s Uighur minority observe their own time.
Conversation
02.13.14
Are Ethnic Tensions on the Rise in China?
On December 31, President Xi Jinping appeared on CCTV and extended his “New Year’s wishes to Chinese of all ethnic groups.” On January 15, Beijing officials...
China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
The news comes at a time of intensifying bloodshed in Xinjiang despite a growing security presence by Chinese personnel.