China may be holding 1 million Muslims in massive internment camp

[mecca]

why are there people always trying to escape communist countries while no one is breaking into them? russians i met are very happy to be out of there.

There are no communist countries. Some countries have claimed that they are working towards communism but you can't really trust what they say because they seemed to use it as an excuse to gain power and become dictators over everyone.

 

[Bacsi]

There are no communist countries. Some countries have claimed that they are working towards communism but you can't really trust what they say because they seemed to use it as an excuse to gain power and become dictators over everyone.

And even those that claimed or still claim working towards communism (including China), continuously worked on their ideology, sometimes changing and adapting it in a short historical timeframe.

As for painting communist countries uniformly and categorically as "dictatorships". Well. To me, the Western world is the extreme case of "dictatorship" and immorality, for example, causing directly and indirectly more death and suffering, than any other ideological system in modern history. Genocide, wars, economic slavery etc. etc. I hope you see what I'm saying.

I think, any "good and evil" abstract categorization is bound to be false. It exists in Harry Potter or the Bible, but not in the real world out there...

 

[Bacsi]

the chinese government has not had the best record when it comes to human rights but i am willing to hear your side of this muslim internment camp story. please include a link to a story corroborating your viewpoint.

Honestly, I don't know where to start in order to sound reasonable to you. There's so much misconception and prejudice in the West, and often outright lies, that it's hard to try and present the facts without sounding a complete brainwashed idiot to a Westerner's mentality...

This Muslim camp, if it exist, is exaggerated. Don't believe the numbers. I have family there in that region and my immediate family members travel to China regularly. The Muslim population is fairly small and disappearance of a million people, mostly younger men, would create a true demographic disaster. Nothing of this sort is happening. Yes, there's been a wide crush-down from the government already for several years. Nobody's reporting about that. Because it's been working effectively to contain the very real and dangerous threat. There's nothing glamourous about people doing atrocities in the name of a religion. I will stress, the reaction of the government is only proportionate to the actual problem. Nobody is trying to be mean for meanness sake, so to speak.

If you think these bad, bad Islam-based ideologies just pop up out of thin air and get distributed solely on their own merit, it's very naive view far from truth. There's geopolitics and lots of $$$ involved, believe me as a first-hand observer. Not long ago a building was half-blown up on the street next where my mom lives by these bearded crazies. To me it's not news reports, it's everyday life.

 

[Bacsi]

maybe you are right about the figures. in the west, we are told that 60 million +/- died under his rule. what about the NKVD and the torture going on during the purges of the 30s? true or false?
russians ive met have not had good things to say about communism. besides, why are there people always trying to escape communist countries while no one is breaking into them? russians i met are very happy to be out of there.

Terrible stuff indeed happened in Russia in the 20th century. Tragedy of unimaginable magnitude. More than once. 1917-1939, 1941-1945, 1991-2000. Awful stuff. I've heard from first-hand witnesses or witnessed myself.

Talking about deliberate injustices and violence of 1917-1939, it wasn't on the scale presented by the Western and most of modern Russian propaganda, and it wasn't the thing the top communist leadership wanted, but what they had to go through and eventually overcome. Much of the "purgings" were the result of the vicious fight during 1917-1939 (after 1922 especially) going on internally within the Russian communist party between two political camps: the Trotskists and the Leninists. Stalin, a Leninist, finally won in 1939. He got almost all those who were guilty of the "purgings" of the innocent - there were open court processes with tons of evidence, accessible today. Not all Trotskists were persecuted, only those with hands steeped in blood up to the elbows. When Stalin in 1953 was poisoned by British agents, it was not without assistance inside the USSR from the remaining Trotskists.

The majority of Russians hate communism, or Marxism-Leninism to be exact, because they see that it brought so much death and misery. They have all the reasons to feel that way, though I disagree that ideology of communism itself is at fault. They have mixed feelings, because after 1939 when there was only one political force remaining, there was peace and stability. The USSR post-1939 was actually a very, very nice country to live in. Free housing, free healthcare, free education for all people, positive hope for the future etc. etc.

I think the Russians might accept a similar communist-type ideology some time in the future, because they do fancy the ideas of social justice and equality. Most likely not under the name of communism or Marxism-Leninism especially...

 

[polymoog]

When Stalin in 1953 was poisoned by British agents, it was not without assistance inside the USSR from the remaining Trotskists.

never heard that before. where can i read more about this poisoning? the west says it was a heart attack and his guards dared not enter his office without permission, so he lie on the floor for several hours before they found him. , i would never put it past western historians to have the wrong story.

 

[Bacsi]

never heard that before. where can i read more about this poisoning? the west says it was a heart attack and his guards dared not enter his office without permission, so he lie on the floor for several hours before they found him. , i would never put it past western historians to have the wrong story.

I'm not sure if there's anything good in English. Lots of materials on the subject in Russian. One funny thing - Winston Churchill received Knight of the Garter in 1953. Stalin refused to use dollars in international trade. He only traded in Soviet roubles reserved by gold. Kruschev agreed to be part of the world financial system and US dollar.

Found this: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/world/new-study-supports-idea-stalin-was-poisoned.html

I haven't read the article above.

China didn't have such traumatic experience with communism that they still hold to. So the Chinese are quite happy with it.

 

[Thunderian]

Trump Administration Considering Sanctioning China Over Muslim Detention Camps
dailywire.com/news/35692/trump-administration-considering-sanctioning-china-kassy-dillon

Current and former American officials say the Trump administration is weighing the possibility of sanctioning Chinese senior officials and companies for the detention of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in internment camps, the New York Times reports.

The alleged detentions have primarily targeted the Uighur ethnic minority, which is primarily made up of Sunni Muslims and other minority Muslim populations.

U.S. officials are seeking to inhibit China from monitoring the Uighurs by limiting sales of surveillance technology used by Chinese security agencies, the Times reports.

On August 29th, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin requesting that sanctions be applied and for additional measures to be taken against government officials.

The Republicans wrote that they are “concerned about the ongoing human rights crisis in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where Muslim ethnic minorities are being subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, egregious restriction on religious practice and culture, and a digitized surveillance system so pervasive that every aspect of daily life is monitored.”

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch released a report estimating the number of detainees could be as high as one million and that “[w]ithin these secretive facilities, those held are forced to undergo political indoctrination for days, months, and even over a year.”

Chinese officials claim the camps are for “vocational education and employment training centers,” or are for “criminals involved in minor offenses,” according to Human Rights Watch.

“The scale of it — it’s massive,” Rubio said of the Muslim detention centers in an interview. “It involves not only intimidating people on political speech, but also a desire to strip people of their identity — ethnic identity, religious identity — on a scale that I’m not sure we’ve seen in the modern era.”

 

[Bacsi]

the number of detainees could be as high as one million and that “[w]ithin these secretive facilities, those held are forced to undergo political indoctrination for days, months, and even over a year.”

One million sounds exaggerated. The total Uighur population in China is about 12 million, including elders and kids. It would mean every young man aged 20-30 is detained. Can't be.

If China sat down and did nothing about this big problem, then today there would be a full-fledged war over there.

 

[z gharib]

Chinese Islamophobia was made in the West
China is using western counter-terror strategies targeting Muslims as justification for its Uighur concentration camps

In response to the rising international criticism regarding the detainment of more than a million Uighur Muslims in so-called "re-education camps", China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended the country's actions, stating, "the efforts are completely in line with the direction the international community has taken to combat terrorism ... if we can take care of prevention, then it will be impossible for terrorism to spread and take root."

China's ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai stated that the country is trying to turn the Uighurs into "normal people," and a pro-government newspaper tweeted: "The West should be consistent over its own value system. How can it be fine to kill terrorists with missiles, but a humanitarian crisis when Xinjiang attempts to turn them into normal people?" Such statements describe the faith of over 1.7 billion people as an illness from which they need to be cured

Viewing Islam as an abnormality and the cause of "extremism," is not exclusive to China, rather it finds its home in the West's Countering Violence Extremism (CVE) programs, which view expressions of Muslim identity as uniquely associated with "extremism" and "radicalisation." Programs aimed at "preventing extremism," have resulted in the stigmatisation and criminalisation of Muslim communities

Today's public discourse on terrorism consists of a fixation on Islam and the expression of Muslim identity as indicators of "extremism," "radicalisation," and "terrorism". It is not a line of thought constrained to the People's Republic of China, rather this viewpoint permeates much of Western academic research and policies. Termed "new terrorism" studies, this field of work arose post-9/11 in an effort to explain, not understand, 21st-century political violence and argued that Islam was the root cause for individuals choosing to engage in violence. In the US, this framework led to destructive wars abroad,surveillanceof Muslim communities at home, and broad violations of human rights.

What we're currently witnessing in China is the product of a framework that points to Islam and the expression of Muslim identity as the root cause of terrorism, a viewpoint that finds its roots in, and is a staple of, Western political discourse.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/chinese-islamophobia-west-190121131831245.html