Uighurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong Memebers in China-Persecution and Genocide

I truly find it kind of unusual that I need to explain how bad China is on the Human Rights spectrum and how much worse our dependence is on that country. Unfortunately, some people still live under a rock, so here I’m rolling out the carpet.

First of all, China is ruled by a one-party system. This is a fancy way to say that they are a dictatorship that rules over 1.2 billion people. Of course, with most dictatorships like China, freedom of speech and freedom of the press is non-existent, and with that, the reality is that if you criticize or challenge the government, you get harassed, arrested, and even tortured.

This would be the status quo of many half-ass backward authoritarian regimes. Besides that, China is not half-ass, not even full-ass, and most certainly not backward. They are an economic superpower with a huge army and nuclear weapons, which gives them an upper hand in controlling and hurting their own people and keeping them quiet.

Unlike other crazy countries trying to control the internet, China is actually succeeding. They manage to keep foreign technologies away and work with internal search engines and social media platforms like Wechat, where they can have an easier time shutting down accounts that fit their broad definition of their anti-terror law. The Chinese government also physically intrudes on its citizens by spending millions on an intrusive surveillance system capable of providing biometric data collection, forcing people to stand in front of security cameras to access their private lives.

Their supposedly anti-terror law has a huge effect on certain groups and ethnic minorities in china. The one that hit the news the most is the oppression of the Uighur Muslims. This includes governments’ approval for mosques and school books, they prevent the practice of religion before the age of 18, and beards and headscarves are not permitted. Even many traditional Muslim names are banned for newborns. Reports have shown that around a million Muslims have been kept in what they call reeducation camps in their province of Xinjian where they are brainwashed and forced to renounce their religion. Some have reported torture and physical abuse, but many other prisoners have never been heard from since the day they got locked in. We don’t know how many Uighurs or any other minority have been killed because China keeps Archives on the lockdown, but it could very easily be in the millions

Unfortunately, China already has tons of practice in oppressing minorities. Since they conquered Tibet in the 50s, the Chinese administration was responsible for 90,000 killings in Lhasa as a result of the occupation. The Dalai Lama and other representatives ran away to Dharamsala (northern India) for protection. China banned the entrance to Tibet for foreigners and sent Chinese citizens to settle there while starting the massive destruction of monasteries and cultural heritage. In 1994, the Tibetan community living in Switzerland blamed China for the death of 1.2 million Tibetans and the destruction of 6,300 monasteries and historical buildings as a result of the invasion and 30 years of persecution.

Another group that disappeared from the Media is Falun Gong, which is a religious and spiritual practice that has also been assaulted by the Chinese government. In the early 90s, the practice started to be popular around the country and even accepted by the bureaucracy and party members. However, by 1999 the government considered that the size of the movement and the spiritual teaching was a risk to the communist ideology of the party. The government started a well-rehearsed persecution against mentors and practicants. In order to change the non-materialistic mentality of the Falun Gong followers, the Chinese government implemented a horrible conversion program full of hate and extreme violence. In 2000 the Falun Gong agencies reported over 64,000 cases of torture and 2,000 confirmed cases of murder.

The detention centers in China are probably one of the darkest places on earth where even the imaginable can become a reality. In 2006, a ghost story caused body shakes all over the world, saying that the number of organ transplants from live donors in China was rising at the same time that Falun Gong people were locked in. The Chinese government was requested to respond to the allegations, which were obviously denied, but no further or deeper investigation was made.

The crazy stuff is that in the 90s, we actually had big Pro-Tibetan movements and concerts, which, unfortunately, we don’t hear much about anymore.  Falun Gong was also getting some traction in the news, and that also disappeared from the Newspaper pages. The discussion of Uighurs with 12 million oppressed minorities has barely picked up. So we must ask why!!! Well, the first answer is that we suck (sorry, had to be said) and are too preoccupied with our own western issues or too busy picking on Israel. but also, the Chinese government is not only effective in suppressing the opposition within its border, but it is effective in silencing them internationally. First of all, they have a major financial grip on the world. Apple, gap, Audi, Delta Airlines, and the NBA are among the brands that needed to change comments and products with a major apology in order to get back to the good grace with China. That’s all because someone in the company made a statement or created a product that offended this oppressive Dictatorship. And this is with all powerful US of A. China’s biggest economic initiative, called The Belt and Road Initiative, is a major infrastructure project designed to connect China with Europe and Africa. Which seems nice at first, but in reality, it is a way for the chinese government to have a economic stronghold on poorer nations through Debt traps while causing corruption, labor conflicts, and environmental degradation.

Now there is social grip China has on the world.

Trying to leave China as an oppressed minority is kind of like leaving the mafia. You never truly leave. China is known to track outspoken members of the Uighurs community and continuously remind them how members of their families still live in China. Last year Canadian-Tibetan named Chemi Lhamo, got elected as the student union president of the University of Toronto Scarborough. This follows from experience of harassment and cyberbullying.

These days China is putting the same pressure they are so famous on Hong Kong, which was a British colony of England for a while and was delusionally hoping to have a real democratic forward-thinking society.

That would obviously be too much from China.

There is also a huge threat to Taiwan, which has managed for now to keep itself as an independent Chinese Nation. Unfortunately, Chinese threats and Human Rights violations are so vast that it would take few books to explain.

The really crappy part of working with China is that it’s very hard for us to make changes because they are too powerful these days. But not all hope is lost. China is trying to become a mother society and is very much trying to fit in with the rest of the world. We simply need to show them that their exceptional capabilities of erasing human crimes will not be tolerated and will no longer work.

Now I hope this won’t turn into people to start suspecting random Chinese people. If they came to the western world, most of them just want to live a nice life, and if there are actual spies among us, it is probably one person in 10 thousand, and you are not going to know who it is. And if you are of those who really want to try, chances are that your ignorant redneck ass does not know the difference between Chinese and Tibetan anyway. If you want to help, don’t discriminate against Chinese people, Elevate, the Tibetans, Uighurs, and the Falun Gongs. Let people know about what’s going on there. We will take power from the Chinese regime by discussing the people they are trying to make disappear.