Who are the Uyghurs?

Who are the Uyghurs, the Muslim minority in China?

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"Brainwashing", forced sterilization, physical torture, rape in meetings, or forced labor.

Here are the testimonies collected by human rights associations from Uyghur survivors detained in Chinese camps.

This predominantly Muslim Turkic people has been living in northwest China for 1,000 years.

In 1949, the People's Republic of China annexed this territory and renamed it Xinjiang, literally "new frontiers", causing numerous tensions between the Uyghurs and the government.

In 2014, a series of attacks were committed by Uyghur terrorists in Xinjiang province.

Xi Jinping, elected head of the country for a year, then decides to toughen his policy of repression against terrorism and Islamism.

Internment camps

As early as 2014, several dozen Uyghurs, suspected of being radicalized, were locked up in internment camps.

In secret documents published by the I, Xi Jinping said: "We must use the tools of popular dictatorship to eliminate radical Islam in Xinjiang province."

In 2018, a UN report estimated that a million people were locked in the camps.

For its part, Beijing denies the existence of its camps and speaks of "vocational training centers" to fight against radicalization.

A territory at the heart of geopolitical issues

For Dilnur Reyhan, doctor in sociology and president of the Uyghur Institute of Europe, this fight against radical Islamism is only a pretext.

By locking up the Uyghurs in these camps, the Chinese government wants "to put an end to this population culturally, linguistically, historically, very different from the majority of China, that is to say the Han Chinese".

According to the sociologist, the aim of this maneuver is "to totally sinise this country which is at the heart of geopolitical issues, and more particularly of the new Silk Road".

This pharaonic project, launched by Xi Jinping in 2013, aims to develop trade between China and the rest of the world, including through the province of Xinjiang.

EU denounces "appalling practices"

In June 2020, following the publication of a report, produced by a German researcher reporting forced sterilizations to which Uyghurs would be subjected, the European Union raised the tone.

"If they are proven, such appalling practices would constitute serious violations of human rights," said Virginie Battu-Henriksson, spokesperson for the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, during a press briefing in Brussels.

Before adding: "We reiterate our request to China to allow access and an enabling environment for visits of independent observers for an independent, objective, impartial and transparent assessment of these matters of concern. major ”.

But for Dilnur Reyhan, who has collected numerous testimonies corroborating the assertions of forced sterilizations, the reaction of the European Union is not sufficient.

According to the president of the Uyghur Institute of Europe, “the European Union, which is China's largest trading partner, has ample means to put pressure on Beijing.

It could, like the United States, take economic sanctions, because the words have no effect on the Chinese government.

• China

• Human rights

• Uighurs

• World

• 20 minutes video