China also the enemy of Islam and Christianity; China is the new Evil Empire

China also the enemy of Islam and Christianity; China is the new Evil Empire

On the eve of International Human Rights Day 2011(see http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/2011/ ), it is a surprise that there has been no call for a Jihad against China's oppressors, with how it is treating its population of Muslims. It is a surprise that any country that calls itself a "Christian Country" is willing to support the utterly mammon-oriented Chinese rulership, particularly with its persecutory attitude to what is the fastest growing religion in the country.

Communist China is well known for its disgraceful treatment of Tibetan people, putting them in concentration camps and torturing and killing countless thousands. China is known for its organ harvesting from political prisoners, particularly falun Gong practitioners - well just about anyone who disagrees with its ideas.

Yet China is not only utterly disregarding the human rights of these groups, its Communist leadership has been discovered to be destroying the culture and persecuting Muslims and Christians within its land as well.

There are more than 8 million Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China and 12 million others elsewhere, yet China actively prevents them practising their religion. Pilgrimage to Mecca is strictly forbidden unless "official permission" is gained and passports are refused routinely.

The State Administration for Religious Affairs earlier this year mandated new rules to "improve the management of Hajj work”, saying the Uighurs, and other Chinese Muslims, were only allowed to travel to Makkah if they go on trips organised by the state-controlled Islamic Association of China (IAC). Many trips, officials have said, would include “patriotic education”.

Officials from Xinjiang and other provinces will accompany the pilgrims and supervise the tour. According to a report in The Hindu newspaper, a Xinjiang official said individuals could not join the official Hajj trips unless they passed a health exam, were between 50 and 70 years of age and paid 22,000 yuan (almost 3,500 US dollars) from their personal funds. This is before the cost of the air fare and other expenses. One devout Muslim is reported as saying that the only way to get a passport is if you either work for the Chinese government or know someone who does.

Christianity is reported to be the most rapidly spreading religion in China but the state has reacted with is usual form of Nazi-style repression, raiding new Christian congregations, imprisoning dissidents and preventing Christians building churches. Literally millions of evangelical Christians have refused to submit to government control.

Estimates put the number of underground Christians at 40 million, with some claiming there are as many as 80 million. Shouwang church was founded in a flat in 1993 but now has 1,500 members. It claims to have been blocked from taking possession of a £2.5 million building it bought in 2009. Yet Christians are still managing to celebrate Christmas and other festivals underground. A US based Christian rights group believe that China is playing a dangerous game if it is pushing Christians into a corner. "One day it will blow", a spokesman for China Aid said.

With this internal melting pot starting to brew in China, the problems we always see in the news about the Middle East will be nothing. If Al Qaeda realise how Muslims are being treated, it is certain they will react. If Christian rights groups and organisations worldwide realise the devastating repression that China is bringing, there is likely to be massive protest in support of their fellows. Imagine if all the religions, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism unite against China. Perhaps finally the governing CCP leadership will realise that its time for democratic elections!

It has always been part of Communist philosophy that religions are no good and should be removed. The reality is that human beings want freedom of choice in their religion. They want that fundamental human right to worship freely, and why shouldn't they? Who should be paying a government of any country simply to worship God in the way they choose?

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY 2011

It has been a year like no other for human rights. Human rights activism has never been more topical or more vital. And through the transforming power of social media, ordinary people have become human rights activists.

FOLLOW US:
   
This year, millions of people decided the time had come to claim their rights. They took to the streets and demanded change. Many found their voices using the internet and instant messaging to inform, inspire and mobilize supporters to seek their basic human rights. Social media helped activists organize peaceful protest movements in cities across the globe - from Tunis to Madrid, from Cairo to New York - at times in the face of violent repression.

Human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values. As a global community we all share a day in common: Human Rights Day on 10 December, when we remember the creation 63 years ago of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On Human Rights Day 2011, we pay tribute to all human rights defenders and ask you to get involved in the global human rights movement.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights hosted a global conversation on human rights through social media on Friday, 9 December at 9:30 a.m. New York time.

See a sampling of the questions we received on our Storify page.

Help us celebrate human rights!

This year everybody has an opportunity to support human rights by joining our celebration. Invite your family and friends to participate in our social media campaign. Become a human rights campaigner; learn more about your rights and spread the word www.celebratehumanrights.org


China is the new Evil Empire

"The administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible exports of nuclear and missile technology, its support for the homicidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and its abusive trade practices. Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand. ... We have every right to condition our foreign aid and debt-relief policies on demonstrable progress toward democracy and market reforms, and in extreme cases, such as that of China, we should condition favorable trade terms on political liberalization and responsible international conduct."

Who said that? Richard Gere? Rush Limbaugh? Rep. Nancy Pelosi? Michael Reagan?

No, folks. It was Bill Clinton in a campaign speech at George Washington University, Dec. 17, 1991.

But that was then -- before John Huang, Charlie Trie, James Riady and Johnny Chung. This is now -- after untold amounts of money have flowed mysteriously into the Democratic National Committee's coffers from Asian banks.

Now that Bill Clinton is safely re-elected as president, he is making George Bush look like a Sino-phobe. He is giving away the store for nothing more than promises. Incredibly, China's President Jiang Zemin, who signaled before he left Beijing for his current swing through the states that he might release a few dissidents from prison as a sign of goodwill, failed to do so because no one demanded it.

Instead, Clinton has been praising China's abominable behavior every chance he gets. Over the weekend, he applauded Jiang's efforts to stop drug smuggling. I don't know how effective those efforts actually were, but I do know that China has used the very technology and training it received from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration to launder funds funneled into U.S. election campaigns and conceal their sources.

Clinton also lauded China's efforts to protect the environment. This about a country that is forcibly relocating 200,000 people to build one of the largest dams the world has ever seen, flooding millions of acres and redirecting the flow of the country's second-biggest river.

Clinton also sloughed off all suggestions that China needed to be confronted on human rights abuses -- ranging from persecution of Buddhists and Christians to banning of political opposition and dissent to the sale of organs harvested from prisoners to forced abortion.

No doubt Clinton will trumpet "concessions" he has received from Jiang. The pride of their summit meeting in Washington will be an announcement that Clinton approved the sale of nuclear reactors to China in exchange for a promise by Jiang not to provide nuclear assistance to Iran and Pakistan.

A promise? And what happens if China breaks that promise as it has in the past? Do we send troops and construction crews into China to remove those nuclear power plants? It's absurd. Jiang will say anything he needs to say to achieve his objectives. The only payoff is to American nuclear power companies, who, having been prevented from building any plants in the United States in recent years, are now buying their way into the lucrative Chinese market.

Clinton said back in 1991 that the only legitimate reason for "coddling" China was as a counterweight to the Soviet threat during the Cold War. I guess he acknowledges now -- belatedly -- that the Soviet Union did, indeed, represent, as President Ronald Reagan boldly proclaimed, an "evil empire."

But Clinton and his friends were late to that realization, and they're late to this party, too. Because, for the foreseeable future, China now represents by far the greatest external, military threat to the United States and it is every bit as evil as the old Soviet Union ever was.

If the investigators searching for how government policy was purchased by campaign contributions are serious, they need look no further than the Clinton administration's relationship with China. Clinton is bought and paid for -- and there's no better illustration than the way he has sold his soul, along with the nation's vital security interests, to Beijing for his own selfish political ambitions.


Al Qaeda vows revenge on Chinese workers over persecution of Muslim Uighurs

Al-Qaeda has vowed revenge on China for the deaths of Muslim Uighurs.

The terror network has pledged to attack Chinese workers in northwestern Africa.

The call to arms emerged in the Hong Kong-based newspaper the South China Morning Post. The threat came from a splinter group, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

t is the first time that Osama bin Laden's organisation has threatened China.

The assessment by a London-based risk analysis company Sterling Assynt, warned that the threat was serious.
“Although AQIM appear to be the first arm of al-Qaeda to officially state they will target Chinese interests, others are likely to follow."

The threat comes after unrest earlier this months which led to pitch battles in the street and the death of 184 people in the ethnically unstable region of Xinjiang in north-western China.
Another 1,700 were injured.

The violence began when Uighurs who were protesting the deaths of fellow factory workers in a brawl in southern China clashed with police.

Crowds scattered throughout the city, attacking ethnic Han Chinese and burning cars.

Of the 184 reported killed July 5, the government has said 137 were Han Chinese and 46 were Uighurs, along with one minority Hui Muslim. Uighurs say they believe many more from their ethnic group died in the government crackdown.

The Uighurs, who number 9 million in Xinjiang, have complained about an influx of Han Chinese and government restrictions on their Muslim religion. They accuse the Han of discrimination and the Communist Party of trying to erase their language and culture.

Han Chinese, many of whom were encouraged to emigrate to Xinjiang by the government, believe the Uighurs should be grateful for the region's rapid economic development, which has brought schools, airports, and oil wells to the sprawling, rugged region the size of Texas.

Meanwhile, more than 100 Chinese writers and intellectuals have signed a letter calling for the release of Ilham Tohti, an outspoken Uighur economist who disappeared from his Beijing home last week and has apparently been detained.
The security report claimed the plight of the Uighurs had struck a chord with many Muslims worldwide.

The report said: “The general situation of China's Muslims has resonated amongst the global jihadist community.

'There is an increasing amount of chatter . . . among jihadists who claim they want to see action against China.'

Three weeks ago, AQIM attacked an Algerian security convoy protecting Chinese engineers on a motorway project, killing 24 paramilitary police.

Security remains tight in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, after two Uighurs were shot dead by police yesterday and a third wounded in a street fight, the details of which remain unclear.

In the Middle East, Little Outcry Over China's Uighurs

The fatal stabbing of an Egyptian Muslim woman in a German courtroom two weeks ago sparked anger across the Muslim world and fueled demands for a formal apology from Germany. But while the region rages about the story of the "headscarf martyr," holding her up as a symbol of persecution, the plight of China's Muslim population has provoked a more muted response.

On July 5 police cracked down on a demonstration by minority Muslim Uighurs in the city of Urumqi, capital of China's western Xinjiang region. Hundreds of Uighur young men rioted, attacking majority Han Chinese civilians with knives, clubs and bricks. In the end authorities say 137 Hans, 46 Uighurs and one member of the Chinese Muslim Hui ethnic group were killed. But, says Diaa Rashwan, a political analyst at the government-backed Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, "there is not a lot of interest or attention paid to these events in the Arab and Muslim world."

(See pictures of the unrest in Urumqi.)

Many Arabic news media covered the story only sporadically or failed to pick up on it until days after the riots began, and opinion writers — who were especially prolific in defense of the headscarf martyr — had very little to say about the Muslims in China. An article over the weekend in Saudi Arabia's Arab Times likened the struggle of their Uighur "co-religionists" to that of the Palestinians and compared the Han Chinese to the Jews; and an editorial in Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram newspaper last week urged the international community to pay more attention to the crackdown. But calls for Muslim and Arab leaders to condemn the violence in China remain conspicuously absent from the regional press.

Which isn't necessarily surprising. Most of the region's governments — and what is largely a state-sponsored press — have several reasons to ignore China's ethnically and religiously charged clashes. To some Arab regimes, the bloody images of riot police clashing with Uighur protesters in Xinjiang's capital last week were strikingly familiar, because the same thing happens at home. "They make the same systematic separation of opponents, of Islamic groups, of opposition groups, and they arrest many and they kill many," says Essam el-Erian, a leader of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, comparing Arab regimes to the Chinese government. "How could they criticize the Chinese? They are in the same boat."
(Read "A Brief History of the Uighurs.")

Indeed, the Uighurs and the popular Islamist Muslim Brotherhood have much to commiserate over. The Uighurs complain of religious and cultural persecution and economic marginalization by China's Han-dominated government. Not unlike Egypt's heavy-handed treatment of the Brotherhood — which is banned from participating in politics, and whose members are frequently subject to arrests and interrogations — China also limits the Uighurs' international travel and maintains a degree of control over the sermons they provide at local mosques.

So far, Turkey has been the only government in the region to offer strong condemnation of China's actions, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan likening the crackdown to "genocide." Turkey shares linguistic and cultural ties with China's Uighurs, and its leaders' criticism of the Chinese government is made easier, says el-Erian, because "they have a democratic system."

(Read "China's War in the West.")

This week, some signs of protest were also evident in Jordan, where, according to U.S.-funded Arabic satellite network al-Hura, 40 Jordanian lawmakers submitted a letter to the head of parliament calling on the government to formally condemn the events in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the Jordanian Moderate Islamic Party encouraged Arab and Islamic governments to take a stance on the "practices against Muslims in Germany and China." But no formal government statements have followed.
A large factor in the regional silence, according to local analysts, is trade. "There are other political and economic interests and challenges," says Hala Mustafa, editor-in-chief of Egypt's government-affiliated Al-Ahram Quarterly Democracy Review. China has a significant economic presence in the Middle East, particularly where it fills the gaps left by U.S. sanctions. According to U.S. government statistics, China is both Iran and Sudan's biggest trade partner, and either the main or secondary source of imports for most of the other countries in the region.

(Read "How Iran Might Beat Future Sanctions: The China Card.")

There is also a potential double standard to consider. In the case of Egypt, "China is not involved in or critical about any of the political challenges in Egypt, and it doesn't interfere on this level," says Mustafa. "That makes Egypt more reserved toward any clashes that Muslims are involved [with] in China."

Even so, some predict the official reaction will come — in time. "I think in the next days and weeks there will be more attention, because it just started in the Arab media," says political analyst Rashwan, adding that Muslim organizations in the Middle East will also start to publicly voice support for the Uighurs. In the most extreme case yet, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb this week called for attacks on Han Chinese in North Africa in retaliation for Muslim deaths.

(See pictures of China after the riot deaths on LIFE.com.)
And while the Iranian government, which waged its own violent crackdown on opposition protesters last month, has remained relatively mute on the issue, several of the country's high-ranking Shi'ite clerics have spoken out against China's actions. "Defending the oppressed is an Islamic and humanitarian duty," Ayatullah Jafar Sobhani said on July 15, according to the Tehran Times.
Still, the chances that the region's heads of states will follow suit seem unlikely.


Repression of all religions in China: Islam in China

China has more than 17 million Muslims[18] but this figure is believed to understate the actual numbers by as much as 50 percent. The Hui are the largest officially recognized Muslim group at about 8.6 million and are ethnically and linguistically Chinese. Hui minority populations are found throughout China and they do not have a traditional territorial homeland.

The Uyghurs are the most important Muslims of Turkic origin and are the dominant ethnic group in Xinjiang, numbering about 7.2 million out of a total population of some 15 million. The Hui and the Turkic Muslims have different relationships with the Han Chinese and the two groups are not natural allies. The former are frequently referred to as "Chinese Muslims" and are culturally closer to the mainstream Chinese community. The Hui have no inherent connection with the Turkic-origin Islamic groups but have often served as a bridge between them and Beijing. Even so, the Hui have also suffered discrimination at the hands of the Chinese and have demonstrated their desire for greater cultural and religious freedom on numerous occasions.
Mosques Closed

Mosques and religious schools in Xinjiang, which are regarded as hot-beds of anti-régime sentiment, have periodically been closed and religious activists arrested and harassed.
In Xinjiang, because Islam is essentially indistinguishable from local cultural and national identity, Beijing perceives it to be a particular threat to its rule. As a result, mosques and religious schools in Xinjiang, which are regarded as hot-beds of anti-régime sentiment, have periodically been closed and religious activists arrested and harassed.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in Xinjiang and throughout China, mosques were destroyed or closed, ancient religious sites desecrated and religious leaders imprisoned and executed. The situation improved in the eighties. According to Dr. Paul George, a Canadian researcher on international security and development, "Mosques were rebuilt or reopened and greater interaction between China's Muslims and the wider Islamic community was permitted. Chinese Muslim participation in the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca grew steadily from the mid-1980s, exposing many ordinary people to international Islamic thought and political developments. Similarly, foreign Muslims were allowed to visit Islamic sites in China, creating a greater awareness of the wider Muslim community."[19]

But by the early 1990s, mosque construction and renovation was severely curtailed, public broadcasting of sermons outside mosques was banned, religious education was proscribed, only religious material published by the state Religious Affairs Bureau was allowed, religious activists were purged from state positions and Haj pilgrimages were tightly controlled and limited to participants over 50 years of age.[20]

Furthermore, the traditional Arabic script that had been used in the region for more than a thousand years is now being superseded by Chinese, and thousands of traditional historical books have been destroyed. The Uyghur language itself has been banned in Xinjiang University according to the testimony of members of the Uyghur American Association to a U.S. Congressional Commission on China.[21]

"
Uyghurs are not generally considered to be fundamentalists and the organized lethal combination of religion and violence seen in the Islamic world from Algeria to Afghanistan is so far missing in Xinjiang. -- Dr. Paul Jones
"
The first serious outbreaks of violence directed at the Chinese authorities occurred in response to the imposition of these restrictive measures and reflected the local communities' anger and frustration at Beijing's about-turn on greater religious freedom.

"Whereas there has clearly been heightened awareness of their ethno-religious roots amongst the Muslims of Xinjiang in recent years, it is not apparent that this can be equated with the beginning of an Islamic fundamentalist movement," Dr. Paul George claims. "In fact, with some exceptions, Uyghurs are not generally considered to be fundamentalists and the organized lethal combination of religion and violence seen in the Islamic world from Algeria to Afghanistan is so far missing in Xinjiang."[22]

Still a small number of Xinjiang Muslims are known to have fought alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and were also later connected to the Taliban. But Uyghur leaders-in-exile maintain that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which the United States recently included in its list of Foreign Terrorist organizations, is an obscure group that most Uyghurs know nothing about and that the political implication of this decision would be disastrous for the Uyghur freedom movement worldwide, and to the ever-deteriorating human rights situation in East Turkistan. The editor of the Uyghur Information Agency in Washington, D.C., declared that America's action would "legitimize China's aggressive clampdown on any form of Uyghur dissent, no matter how nonviolent and peaceful they may be."[23]




Uyghur Human Rights Project
Uyghur American Association (UAA)
1420 K Street, NW. Suite 350 Washington DC, 20005
Tel: (202) 478-1920 :: Fax: (202) 478-1910 :: Email: info@uhrp.org








Pictures:
1.Uighur ethnic men gather at a corner of a market in Kashgar, Xinjiang provinc
2. Xinjiang Region, China
3. Xinjiang is home to more than eight million Uighurs
4. Uighurs have long complained of repression under Chinese rule
5.Many of Xinjiang's Uighurs are unhappy with what they say has been decades of political and religious repression
6.Uighurs allege decades of political and religious repression by China
7.Young Uighur women watch a line of riot police in the Uighur area of Urumqi city in China's Xinjiang region
8.A police patrol passes ethnic Uighurs on a street in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang region
9.Chinese authorities pressed on with the repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the report said
10.An ethnic Uighur woman carrying bread walks past armed Chinese paramilitary police in riot gear as they stand guard on a main street in the city of Urumqi
11.Indonesian Muslim men protest against the Chinese government's crackdown on the Muslim Uighur minority outside the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta
12.Violence: In this video grab taken earlier this month, two women with blood on their faces comfort each other in Urumqi, China, during the deadliest ethnic violence in decades
13.Police gather opposite protesters in Urumqi, in a demonstration that began peacefully but turned violent
14.Dead bodies lie at the corner of a building in Urumqi
15.Armed Chinese paramilitary police in riot gear disembark a truck outside a mosque in Urumqi in China's Xinjiang region on July 13, 2009
David Gray / REUTERS