Ethnic minorities in Xinjiang hold couplets to pay respect to the New Year in Chinese. (Photo credit: video screenshot)
The traditional Chinese New Year is approaching, but it is a painful Time for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, as they either have to change their ethnic habits to celebrate with the Chinese Communist Party authorities in a play, or be sent to a concentration camp, leaving no choice.
Recently, the Communist Party’s official media propagandized that the “taste of New Year” is gradually warming up in the streets of Kashgar, Xinjiang, and that local residents have come out to speak and thank the government.
But Radio Free Asia on Feb. 8 quoted Dirichati, a spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur Congress, as saying that local Uighurs are being forced to observe Han Chinese holidays and that those who do not celebrate the Chinese New Year will be put in concentration camps: “China [the Communist Party] is demanding that the ‘Spring Festival’ be used to screen whether Uighur cadres have resisted Chinese cultural ideas, while Uighur homes are required locally to post couplets and hang red lanterns, with joint inspections by the stability task force, and those who do not pass the ‘Spring Festival’ will be accused of being extremists who resist Chinese Culture and put into concentration camps to undergo political brainwashing.”
The video provided by World Vision shows that various ethnic groups on the mainland, including the Uyghurs, are celebrating the New Year in the same manner as the Han Chinese, with red lanterns also hanging in the streets and the Xinjiang minority holding couplets to pay their respects in Chinese.
However, the timing and customs of the New Year for Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities are very different from those of the Han Chinese.
Dilishati said, “The Chinese (Communist) government is using coercive means to try to get the Uighurs to accept the ‘Spring Festival’ as their own traditional holiday for the political purpose of assimilation.”
Dina, a businesswoman from Yili, Xinjiang, who now lives in Kazakhstan, told the radio station that during the Chinese New Year, authorities force every Kazakh Family to make “friends” with Han Chinese and visit each other: “Kazakhs, Uyghurs, every family has to celebrate The ‘Spring Festival’ is said to be a ‘national unity family’, one is Han and one is Uyghur or Kazakh. They (Han) ‘Spring Festival’ time to your Home, you also have to go to their home, must go to socialize, eat, but ‘Spring Festival’ will not work. On the day of ‘Spring Festival’, every village committee has to arrange a program and all the villagers have to go to it.”
Dina also confirmed that if minorities refuse to celebrate Chinese New Year, they are sent to concentration camps: “If you don’t celebrate [Chinese New Year], you are sent directly to a training center.”
“Training center” is the official Chinese Communist Party term for the camps. According to the radio station, the Communist Party has closed most of the camps due to outside pressure, but a small number have been renamed “entrepreneurship centers” and continue to exist.
Kazakh Raiis Khan confirmed to the radio station that Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities are being forced by authorities to put up couplets and eat pork: “Regarding the ‘Spring Festival,’ the Uighurs and Kazakhs have to spend it with the Han Chinese, and are forced to put up spring couplets. As far as I understand, the authorities have forced the posting of spring couplets and distributed pork to Muslim families between 2017 and 2020. But now, in the name of helping to solve difficulties, arrangements are made for Han Chinese to go to Muslim families and then Muslim families are required to go to Han Chinese families for pork meals on a regular basis.”
The persecution of Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities by the Chinese Communist Party continues to come to light, with U.N. officials and human rights groups alleging that the Communist Party has established concentration camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning millions of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, subjecting them to forced labor and torture, and forcing Uyghur women to undergo sterilization.
The U.S. government announced last month that the Chinese Communist Party has committed genocide against the Uighur people, just as the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews during the Holocaust.
Recently, the BBC shocked the international community by reporting that several survivors of Xinjiang concentration camps have revealed that they experienced, witnessed, or were forced to assist the authorities in raping, sexually assaulting, or torturing women in Xinjiang detention camps while in custody.
British Foreign Office Minister for Asia Adams said last week that his country is seriously considering any further sanctions against China (the Chinese Communist Party), including against its officials.
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