hearing transcript (pdf - 690 kb) - House Foreign Affairs Committee ...

46
after September 11, 2001. It can be seen on all aspects of Uyghur
life: Political, economic, cultural, and religious. These are the main
reasons why I left my home country in the early 1990s like many
other Uyghurs, fleeing Chinese persecution. I lived in Uzbekistan
for many years. I, a peaceful and a quiet Muslim, was able to somewhat
practice Islam in Uzbekistan whereas in China I couldn’t
whenever I returned home and visited my parents.
In the spring of 1997 when I visited my parents in Urumchi, I
decided to go to a local mosque for a Friday prayer. I went to the
mosque which was quite close to where my parents lived. I met
with a number of Uyghurs who were standing in front of the
mosque and they greeted me. There, many elders of the mosque
sincerely warned me not to go into the mosque to pray because of
the political situation. They said I would be in big trouble with the
authorities if I went in and prayed, since many Uyghur young men
were arrested. After their warning, I didn’t go in to pray but left
for home. Later I learned that mosques became a place where Chinese
police arrest those Uyghur youth that they deem suspicious.
The time I visited Urumchi was just 2 months after the Ghulja
massacre where the Chinese paramilitary police killed many peaceful
Uyghur demonstrators in the city of Ghulja, which is very close
to Kazakhstan, because they demanded political and religious freedom
from the Chinese authorities. Their righteous demand met
with armed repression and large-scale execution.
According to Amnesty International, since February 1997 China
executed more than 200 Uyghurs for participating in a peaceful
demonstration in the city of Ghulja. Amnesty says China only executes
Uyghur political and religious dissidents and the torture
methods China uses on the Uyghur prisoners are nowhere to be
found in China.
In China it is almost a crime being born a Uyghur Muslim. To
be a practicing Muslim for the Uyghur people means to be a criminal
in the eyes of the Chinese authorities. Today the Uyghur people
don’t enjoy religious or any kind of freedom in China. The religious
freedom Uyghurs enjoy in China is as hypocritical as the ethnic
autonomy the Chinese Government offered to the Uyghurs in
1955. There is practically no way for an average Uyghur to study
and practice Islam in an average way under Chinese rule. Pro-Chinese
Uyghur mullahs or imams who have been indoctrinated by
the Chinese authorities run all the mosques. As a result, the
mosques are no longer a house of worship but have become a house
of fear. China arrests and imprisons any Uyghur it suspects practicing
religion outside of its tight control. This has contributed to
the loss of identity among many Uyghurs who are afraid of learning
and practicing their religion Islam.
Fear is rampant among the Uyghur religious community. There
is noplace where ordinary Uyghur Muslims can teach their children
what their forefathers have believed for 1,000 years. I always wanted
to teach my son Azimat Ghayret, who is now in Urumchi, to
study Quran. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anyplace to send him
since China considers private religious education as illegal religious
activity. Today the only way for the Uyghurs to be a good citizen
of China is to give up their religion, their culture, their tradition
and their way of life, and totally to conform to the standards of the
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