U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has raised issues with china that in its province of Xinjiang, in western China, Muslims were held for months and years without court action.
Xinjiang has large number of ethnic Uighur Muslims that belong to largely peaceful Sunni sect. There are large number of training centers throughout the province that say that they teach Uighur Muslims about law and job-related skills to participate in main stream Chinese life. But reports have been out that these are similar to jail camps. they are largely taught about loyalty to Communist Party of China as supreme authority and memorize to praise lessons of it. They are forced to write essays about self-criticism, never to do prayers outside of their mosques. Hijabs for females and beard for males re frowned at. These are largely brain washing exercises, to reduce their devotion to Islam.
Xinjiang is about the size of Rajasthan. It has 24 million population and half are Muslim . Their religion, language and culture, are different and past history of independence and resistance to main stream china has led to many clashes in the past. Anti government movements and agitation in 2014 was taken very seriously by Beijing Government. Bureaucrats are trained to use psychological war fare to train these Muslims to submit to loyal citizenship and respect communist party. Many tactics are similar to Culture revolution of Mao in 1970s
China has denied news of forced conversion in Xinjiang. A United Nations panel in Geneva last month got the Chinese report saying that their efforts are to educate and train Muslim minority for better jobs and future.
The government became tougher in 2009 after protests in Xinjiang that caused 200 people dead.
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