Den norske Uighurkomiteen

Uighurs - Who are they?

Most people know that Tibet was occupied by China in 1950 and the country since that time has been under pressure, Tibetan culture tried mini Mali based and indigenous partially replaced by ethnic Chinese. But how many know that the East-Turkistan was occupied in 1949, the population, Uyghurs, unable to exercise their religion in peace, the population here is partly replaced by ethnic Chinese with no cultural roots in what is now the Chinese province of Xin Jang. Probably just a few? But oppression is just as strong in Eastern Turkistan that it is in Tibet.

East-Turkistan is located along the historic silk route, trade route between east and west, and has been a center of commerce through more than 2,000 years. At the country's borders to countries such as China, Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India says most of the country's central location is. It is also worth noting that East Turkistan is beyond the Chinese wall and therefore beyond the natural border with China.

The original population in this area is not Chinese, but the Central Asian Turks, called Uyghurs. When China occupied East Turkistan in 1949 and made the country into a Chinese province, Xin Jang, lived only 200 000 Chinese people in this area. Today, there are 7.49 million ethnic Chinese here, against 8.68 million Uyghurs, as well as a number of other Muslim peoples. According to Chinese sources. Uyghur sources believe the Uyghur population is around 20 million.

Uyghur people speak a language that is strongly related to Turkish. Today Uyghur people are Muslims. Their history in this area goes back 4,000 years. In earlier times was shamanism religion or Buddhism. From the first century A.C and up to the ninth century was A.C Eastern Turkistan one of the world's foremost centers of Buddhist civilization.

In the ninth century A.C population was strongly influenced by Islam on a strong advancing in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. The capital Kashgar was quickly one of the most important places for learning Islamic religion and culture, where art, music and literature flourished. It was written thousands of books, including a large dictionary in Turkish language.

The Idyll was first broken in 1759 when the independent Uyghur Kingdom in the Eastern Turkistan Stan for the first time was postponed a Chinese occupation. From then until 1862 was East-Turkistan managed as a military colony under the Chinese Manchu Dynasty. Uyghur made several uprisings and eventually succeeded in 1864 to evict occupiers and establishing a new independent state. It was however short-lived. Manchu Dynasty immigrated again Eastern Turkistan in 1876 and after a bloody eight years war the Eastern Turkistan annexed by China and turned into a Chinese province named Xin Jang, which means 'new territory'.

Under the Chinese nationalists who threw the old Empire in 1911 had the Chinese central government little control over Eastern Turkistan which instead was dominated by various Chinese warlords who had long controlled provincial administration. There were still several rebel from the Uyghur population, as in shorter periods, managed to regain uyghur an independent state in both 1933 and 1944.

In 1949 march rally the Chinese Communists in Eastern Turkistan and started one of the blackest chapters in the Uyghur history. It was the start of a deliberate Chinese policy, which continues today, and that is to make indigenous to a minority and impose a Chinese culture at the expense of their own. Growth of the Chinese population from 200 000 in 1949 to nearly 8 million today tells the most about this policy, which still goes on for full.

In the last two years, for example, the Chinese government started a large-scale deportation of young uyghur girls to forced labor in other parts of China. As part of an adopted five - years - plan to 400 000 young uyghur girls from the poor peasant families in the south-eastern parts of the East-Turkistan transported to companies in other parts of China. Xin Jang Daily newspaper reported in March 2007 that 240 000 girls were moved in 2006.

Attacks on Uyghur religion are a key means that the Chinese use to undermine and destroy the old indigenous culture. The Amnesty International report on China for 2007 states that the thousands of people who exercised their faith outside officially sanctioned churches were subjected to harassment and many were arrested and imprisoned. The same pursuit frames the Uyghur Muslims. Young people cannot learn about their religion. Children under 18 years, for example, not allowed to enter the mosque.

This year, the Chinese police conducted mass arrests of people suspected to be dissidents under cover of the strike against terrorists and those who threaten security in connection with the Olympic Games. The Secretary-General World Congress of the Uyghur believe that as many as 10 000 may have been arrested in the last 4-5 months only in East Turkistan.

24. march this year showed around 1,000 Uyghur women with demands for freedom for East-Turkistan. Almost 600 of them were arrested, including two secondary school students, which are now sentenced to three years prison. it is common for dissidents arrested is tortured. It was confirmed among others by UN special reporter, Manfred Nowak, when he visited China at the end of 2005. 'Torture is widespread,' he writes in the report, particularly in Tibet and Eastern Turkistan.

How long will the world community tacitly stand and see that a quality thousands of years old culture will be destroyed, and a majority population turned into a minority in their own country?