On this episode of China Uncensored,
nothing says celebrate Chinese culture...
like destroying everyone else’s culture.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
The Chinese Communist Party loves
all the 56 ethnic minorities of China.
For example, Tibetans.
The Party liberated Tibet from the mean old Dalai Lama
created a modern society by burning down temples,
mostly wiping out the language,
and let’s not forget,
making lots and lots of dead bodies.
And since this strategy was so effective
at making Tibetans cooperative,
why not try it in other ethnic regions of China?
Well that’s just what the Communist Party
has been doing in the Xinjiang Autonomous region
and its ethnic Uighur population.
And it’s working just as well as you can imagine.
I went down to Washington DC to speak with Irade Kashgary,
a Uighur activist,
about the Chinese Communist Party’s cultural genocide.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you, I'm happy to be here.
So, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Of course, I was born in East Turkestan in 1993.
My parent immigrated to the United States in 1999 and,
I am a US citizen and ever since I was five years old
I've been a Uighur human rights activist,
I've been going to protests since then,
complaining about what China's been doing to Uighur's and,
now I operate on a care and education
which is a Uighur language school
in northern Virginia.
Now I understand that some people
call East Turkestan a different name.
Yes, they do go by Xinjiang but,
just like my name for example which
my parents gave me the name Irade Gilel,
they change it to Eurita Gilelly.
Similar to what they're doing,
this all part of their sinicization,
their plans to try to completely suppress
and get rid of Uighurs in general and,
that's why they renamed East Turkestan as Xinjiang.
That is the name that they wanna go by,
the second you say East Turkestan,
you're detained, you're sent away,
you're considered a separatist.
But that is the name given to us back in the 1800s.
One thing I don't get is,
I hear that all the ethnic minorities in China
love the communist party so,
surely the Uighurs also love the communist party?
You hear that yes but, unfortunately that is not the case,
that is false propaganda that they like to spread.
Even before 2001, they used to say things like,
"Uighurs are so happy here,
they love the communist party,
they're great, we get along great."
Just like the Tibetans.
Just like the Tibetans. So no difference right,
we're not under any oppression so, the unhappiness
is because of that oppression because
even back in history in the 1900s
what would happen is Uighurs would get to
a certain part of their career
or they'd have caps there would be racism,
they would be capped off at a certain position,
they don't have any self determination,
even back then and,
that's where the unhappiness comes from.
So just for the audience who might not have
a super clear idea of the Uighur people,
can you tell us a little bit about the Uighur identity.
Yeah, we're Turkic muslims,
we've been in existence for a very long time,
we've had our own country, we have our own country,
currently oppressed, we're-
This feels so subversive, I love it.
Yeah, we have a lot going on and, we have history,
we have culture, we're Turkic and,
we have a lot of Islamic points for example,
our text is arabic and, we've been in existence for so long,
we used to be nomadic people and,
then we settles in the northwest
similar to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan etc.
And in 1949 we were oppressed by the communist party.
Oppressed or liberated?
Oppressed.
So, you see this in Tibet as well
as in Xinjiang or East Turkestan,
I'm using both so people know the same page we're on.
Like Tibet, you see an eradication
of the traditional Tibetan culture.
That's happening in Xinjiang as well right?
That is correct, it's happening at an alarming rate.
It started as I mentioned very early on but,
it's getting more and more severe now,
they're attacking children,
they're handling the generations differently so,
while they're arresting the people like me, my age and older
they are taking the younger kids
that are still developing their minds and,
they are teaching them to forget who they are
and to consider themselves Han Chinese.
There are videos that have been released with kids that
are Uighur saying that they are Han Chinese, this is ridiculous.
How do you say that you're not one thing and, that your another.
It's like ethnic genocide.
It's ethnic genocide and,
they're making sure that any of our ideologies,
any of our beliefs are completely being suppressed.
I hear, so on Ramadan,
which is traditional holiday where people fast correct?
I hear they have even been giving Uighur children candy to tempt them.
That's been going on for a while actually,
so even before the recent aggression,
rise of aggression, they had been purposefully during Ramadan
bringing candy and cookies to schools so that the kids
would be more tempted.
Now that's not even the case, you have to eat,
you have to even drink alcohol, for adults at least,
I don't wanna say-
They're not forcing it on the kids yet.
Not yet.
So, they're tempting them with candy.
It's like the communist party has reached
old child molester in a van kind of evil.
Exactly, it's getting ridiculous and at this time
they're sending these kids to school
far away from their parents.
So, there's two parts to this, one part is that kids
are being sent to orphanages because their parents
are being sent to reeducation camps so,
they have no adult supervision so,
for those that aren't being left alone,
they are being sent to orphanages as if they didn't have
living parents or living family members.
The other half whose parents may not have been sent and,
that's a very very few,
they are being sent to boarding schools and,
this has been happening for a long time and,
I know a specific girl who was a student
here in the US and she thought
she wanted to go is it her parents,
two years ago and she thought,
she's very young so she's innocent,
she doesn't realize what's going on
because she grew up in Chinese education.
And, she went back and she was
immediately sent off to boarding school,
even though all of her stuff is here,
her education is here, in the United States but,
the second she went back, off to boarding school.
How old was the girl?
She was 14 years old.
She stayed with me at my families house and,
she was at a private school,
a very well because her parents were somewhat well off and
were able to send her money.
Now we don't know,
last we heard she went off to boarding school but,
we don't know.
So, how has the communist party changing the face of Xinjiang,
East Turkestan?
Well, first and foremost
they've destroyed one of our oldest cities,
one of our oldest traditional cities, Kashgar.
My last name actually is a note to that so, Kashgari,
Kashgar and, they completely demolished this historic land
with all of our agent buildings
that contain a lot of history and,
rebuilt on it to sinocize it and,
to remove any sort of history that was there.
They destroyed books,
especially anything that contains religious text but,
at this point having something like a small term,
used once in the book means that they're gonna destroy it.
They're not allowing the language to be used at all.
The language is banned.
They're forcing people into the houses,
Chinese party representatives into houses
so that they can spy and,
make sure that these Uighur families are not
associating with their culture in any way.
And as I understand a lot of traditional beliefs
are also being discouraged,
to put it lightly.
Exactly, so the religious oppression is very intense,
anything that we believe in,
we're not allowed to say or they're not allowed to say,
you know god bless or anything like that.
They have to say Xi Jinping bless
or the Chinese communist party bless.
Really, I'm gonna start using that. Xi Jinping bless.
I'm sure you could do a little hashtag
and make that run off real quick.
Some things should not become viral.
I agree.
So, Xinjiang is becoming a surveillance state,
people are even being monitored in their homes.
What's the goal of all this?
To make sure that people aren't associating themselves
with Uighur at all,
this is all part of their plan to completely
destroy the Uighur culture and, t
o make sure that they're not teaching their kids for example or,
they're not keeping anything from the party.
This is all part of their,
you know they're talking about the surveillance state.
This is 100% big brother esque level.
Big brother's great though.
Yeah I mean, what can go wrong when they're watching your
every single move and they have your kids and,
there's been proof that they're
asking the kids to tell on their parent
so if that's not 1984.
Just like in the cultural revolution.
Just like the cultural revolution.
So, how successful is the party at this cultural genocide?
I think they are getting pretty successful,
I think it's been happening at alarming rates.
Earlier this year we were talking about people
being sent into these so called reeducation camps.
Vocational training schools please.
Vocational training schools.
But really let's be honest they're a step away
from being concentration camps.
They're being sent to these at alarming rates
because earlier this year
we were saying that there was around the hundred thousands,
now we're saying up to three million people and,
the UN even released a report on this as well.
So this is, they're being successful and,
we need to speak up or we need to do something
as soon as possible.
I know the US government had been more vocal
about the situation there.
What can the rest of the world do?
We can continue to be more and more vocal.
The US has been taking lead on it recently
there's been the Uighur human rights act that's been released.
But, the international community,
the EU has spoken up as well but,
it's still speaking up is only the first step.
We need to actually create acts.
For example the US has to make Magnitsky act.
We need to implement that,
I think all countries need to implement it.
Can you just mention how that applies specifically to Xinjiang.
Yeah there's many leaders like Chen Quanguo that need
to be pinpointed that he needs to be sanctioned.
There needs to be sanctions happening,
we need to be able to say, "Look, you can't do this."
And, here are specific people doing this
and they need pinpoint these leaders that are behind all of it.
So, what happens to people who try and stand up to this?
Inside of Xinjiang, East Turkestan?
There have been very small movements for example
in the sense of people stand up by you know,
we really value books and art and stuff like that
and the second someone even tries to do something
like that they get imprisoned.
We have many many thought leaders, professors,
authors that have been detained
and sentenced to life in prison because what?
They released a book a couple of years ago?
They translated a religious text, for little things
like that they're getting imprisoned.
For even studying abroad they're getting imprisoned.
There have been many people who studied abroad
that we haven't heard from, we don't know where they are.
Any sort of dissent from the communist party angers them,
they believe that they'll get success through the sinocisation
of all cultures and Uighurs have a very strong cultural identity and,
this makes them fro example
when they go out they don't say that they're Chinese,
they say they're Uighur.
This does not fall well with the communist leaders.
Communist China is not okay with this.
They want everyone to be Han Chinese in one sense,
they don't want anything that might divert them from following,
feeling any sort of way about the communist party besides, all hail.
Well, that was very insightful,
thank you for joining us if the audience would like to learn
more about you or what you're doing what can they do?
What they can do is, they can visit many of our websites,
we have UHRP.com, we have UAA.com, these are all sources.
You can google Uighur's on google and,
you'll be able to learn a lot from there.
Besides that they can contact many of our leaders and,
make sure that you know read on the Uighur human rights act,
read on the act and see how
that's implementing right now in the government.
Well thank you for joining us, great to talk to you.
Alright, thank you!
Well thank you very much for that fascinating interview.
Yeah, of course!
But there's actually so much more to talk about.
There is! I don't think we got to half of it.
Not even half.
Fortunately, I spoke to Irade on the China Unscripted podcast...
where... it was amazing.
Yeah, it was amazing and we got to talk about more of the issues that are just so important.
And I've put a link below so check it out!