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George Orwell’s 1984 talks of a dystopian fictitious future as a result of the abolishment of free expression distorted in the name of absolutist ideologies. Having said that, a certain country’s laws were subsequently enforced to realise such feudal beliefs – being detained on a preemptive you-might-commit-a-crime basis and having your family and relatives incriminated in doing so is woefully an everyday fear. Throw in some racial segregation to the already miserable mix and you’ve got yourself a seriously exigent human rights crisis and an Uyghur China.

China’s Xinjiang province has had a long-standing history of segregation, where the Hans reign is superior over the Uyghur population. Such segregation was exacerbated by the Chinese government who actively sponsored out-of-state Hans to migrate to Xinjiang where they would be favoured for higher-paying jobs. On that account, further discrimination and hostility are only worsened and targeted at the other half of the population.

Tensions finally exploded with the Urumqi riots, which were a series of riots in July 2009 instigated by the death of 2 Uyghur workers and 118 others over an alleged sexual assault of a Han worker by her Uyghur co-worker. The riots led to the death of over 197 Han Chinese and the mysterious disappearances of over 40 Uyghurs. 

In a cynical attempt of appeasement, China’s government decided to renew its Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism Act in 2014, essentially labelling all Uyghurs as potential terrorists and opened up “re-education facilities” for the purposes of rehabilitating them. This has now been labelled globally and popularly as the Uyghur Concentration Camps.

In the many months preceding this renewed act, CCTV cameras were installed in every nook and cranny all over the province in search of the then-legislated “75 behavioural indications of religious extremism”. The clauses to this include absurd rulings on rather common behaviours such as storing a large amount of food at home, habitual smoking and drinking but suddenly quitting, or even things as miniscule as owning a tent. Such ruling had undoubtedly reflected the notion that this Xinjiang law is more of a weapon to further the silencing of Uyghurs than it is a tool to unify both populations – the Hans and the Uyghurs.  

The CCTVs installed flagged 24,000 Uyghurs and resulted in over 15,000 within such, forcefully sent to camps due to crimes as “horrendous” as downloading WhatsApp. These “malicious criminals” are then sentenced to over a year in the concentration camps. Conversely, for the rest of the Chinese population, although the use of Whatsapp is blocked in China, there has been no precedence of anyone being charged for using VPN services to use blocked websites in the country. Such disparity clearly indicates the extent of manipulation in the law to serve unjust needs. China wilfully reasoned that “re-educating” perpetrators were necessary to prevent crimes from happening; something the rest of the world knows as a Black Mirror episode, as in the Netflix series.

So where are we at today?

Unfortunately, the string of international criticisms of this human rights crisis only resulted in China modifying their camps to become more appealing to the rest of the world whilst inviting journalists to come and see for themselves that these camps were nowhere near as bad as painted. Supervised visits showed a vibrant and hospitable vocational environment filled with laughter, along with the freedom to leave – but the story takes a 180-turn when heard inside the high barb-wired walls.

Omir Bekali was on his way to promote the International Astana Trade Exposition in Xinjiang, when officials arrested him on the morning of 26th March – shackled on his hands and legs, he was thrown into a cell for a week with no explanation. He was then transferred to another station where he was physically and psychologically tortured – needles being put in between his nails and beating his back and stomach repeatedly to get him to confess to crimes he didn’t commit – such as supporting terror groups and planning terror attacks. The list goes on.

Omir was then finally transferred to the infamous “re-education camp” in November where he and many other unfortunate inmates were shackled 24 hours a day, forced to sing praise to the Chinese Communist Party, and to show gratitude towards President Xi Jinping. Guards would respond with torture if one were to show any form of discontent like rolling of the eyes, or failure to recite Chinese songs (I would have been beaten to death). Omir was (fortunately?) released after 20 days in camp, ending his near 8-months of living hell.

Concluding remarks

Orwell’s 1984 may be seen as a reflection of the author’s personal journeys of witnessing human fallibility where ultimate power corrupts absolutely. The human spirit can indeed be coerced and that a population, with enough tactful physical and psychological torture, can be forced into believing the untrue and worshipping the unreal. If reality is morphing into this dystopian fiction somewhere, are we really fine living in such a world?

And yet this is still happening. Right now, as you read this, someone in these camps is getting tortured for crimes they didn’t commit… being forced to worship a government that discriminates and dehumanises them constantly. You can do something about this. Signing petitions, donating and volunteering in humanitarian organisations against this monstrosity is doing something. Even talking about this to your friend to raise awareness is doing something. And doing something right now would alter and possibly determine the fate of all those unfortunate souls trapped in the depths of Xinjiang’s concentration camps.