Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you so much. I'll start by thanking the committee for holding this series of hearings on these important issues. In my 10 minutes, I'll give you an overview of what's happening to the Uighurs, based on my research. I'll talk a bit about why it's happening, and I'll also g

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think one of the things that they think about is that China has an immense population of 1.4 billion people. The Tibetan and Uighur homeland, Xinjiang, is seen as a space that could accommodate large populations of Han people from overcrowded areas in the east. China is also i

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I have some anecdotal evidence of that. I haven't seen any empirical evidence. It's something that's quite difficult to assess as an outside researcher. I've heard from nurses and others who are involved in the Chinese medical system in Xinjiang that they have performed these sor

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We have heard some reports that in the camps, people who do not acquiesce to the re-education curriculum or to the struggle sessions they're subjected to—where they have to stand in front of others and denounce their past crimes, such as studying the Quran, learning Arabic, trave

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In the past, Uighurs have had their own political leaders working within the Chinese Communist Party. Some of those people did try, in some ways, to advocate for Uighur rights and greater autonomy. Uighurs themselves now live in what they call the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regio

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In the past, this would have been a process that they tried to do. One of the Uighur officials that many Uighurs look up to, Seypidin Azizi, had quite a lot of power. He was the party secretary for the entire region. There have also been Mongol leaders in the past who have had si

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The largest population of Uighurs in diaspora are in Kazakhstan and in Turkey. Then there are significant populations in Germany and in the United States, mostly centred around Washington, D.C. The population in Kazakhstan, which is actually the largest population, is very tightl

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Most of the harassment that Uighurs face overseas and in the diaspora is directed toward their family members back in China. Most Uighurs who are living abroad still have parents or close relatives back in China. Their online activity is being watched quite closely. Their family

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I've heard in a few cases that people have been detained as they arrive in the airport in Shanghai or Beijing. Agents will escort them off the plane. They are often held in detention for a period of time in the locality where they arrived, the port of entry, and then police offic

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They have extradition agreements in Kazakhstan, and I think the same is true in some countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They rounded up Uighurs and sent them back. I don't know the inner workings of how that has gone on, especially in the Middle Eastern

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  One of the things that has happened very recently is that China has refused to renew Uighur or Kazakh passports for those who are living in the diaspora. People living abroad on a Chinese passport are being forced to go back to China to get a new passport. If they go to the Chine

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In my opening statement, I told you a little bit about what happened in the 2010s when there was a turn to pious forms of Islam. The Chinese state viewed that turn towards more pious forms—and they're really just mainstream forms of Sunni Islam and Hanafi Islam—as the Talibanizat

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Do you mean the status quo among Uighurs—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  —or that Uighurs were a threat to the Chinese status quo?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, I don't think the Uighurs have ever been an existential threat to China. I think what they do see, though, is that Uighur autonomy and Uighur society, as it was, was preventing open access to markets and to the natural resources of the region. That was part of the reason they