#uygher genocide

[bibyebae]

IM FUCKIN SICK OF GENOCIDE

[unoisveimved-un-proffesional]

Just a reminder that the supposed "Uyghur Genocide" is a hoax, and you guessed it, it's the USA's fault.

[hayatheauthor]

Eid Mubarak to all the orphans in Gaza who have no new clothes to wear, no family to visit, no home to decorate. Who witness bombs tearing their sky apart while we watch fireworks.

Eid Mubarak to all the Muslims in Turkistan, the Uyghurs who are stripped of their right to choose their religion and follow it, who are ethnically cleansed and religiously coerced. Who have been sent to camps and tortured simply due to their faith.

Eid Mubarak to the Sundanese and Congolese who celebrate this auspicious day with bombs flying over their heads and soot staining their hands, the biggest victims of our consumerism.

Eid Mubarak to all the Muslims who don’t have families to celebrate with or money to purchase clothes and decorations. This year has made it clearer than ever that Eid is not the same for everyone. Remember to pray for our struggling Ummah and be grateful for your blessings. 🌙🤍

[weemietime]

These Nazi chucklefucks snooping my bio to call me an insane person, tell me to take my meds, and that I'm a liar LOL. And we were all shocked that literal Nazis -- cheering "gas the Jews" and posting their "social justice activism" of regurgitating actual IRGC propaganda and supporting the genocidal Houthis -- are also ableist 🙄😂

and then they have the GALL to ask why I won't have a detailed and nuanced conversation (read: why won't u just agree with me that Israel should be destroyed 😳😳😳) about fucking Israel and Palestine.

Bro can't even admit that Hezbollah killing the equivalent amount of Israeli civilians is wrong yet scree "ur deflecting" when I bring it up in response to the pager attack after ranting about Nelson Mandela, South Africa, the Lebanese civil war and Palestinians.

Plzzzz, snoop my bio harder and take personal things I've shared and use them to try and cause me pain and suffering while wondering why I won't "respond to ur questions about Palestine." dude really said "ur bio reads like fanfiction" because I said "I'm a survivor of human trafficking" LMAO. Yeah man that single sentence is so unbelievable!!!

most hinged terrorist supporter. Honestly these idiots truly cannot understand it, I constantly get people barfing and screaming about how I'm ACAB EXCEPT FOR ISRAEEELLLL and how could I possibly be an ANARCHISTTTT if I support Jewish safety and indigenous rights like they don't comprehend that having a homeland and self determining there is separate from having a state.

Then goes omg what do u think about Israel supporting south Africa as if it is some kinda magical gotcha that will prove I'm a hypocrite. Fun fact, what the Israeli government does is actually irrelevant to my belief in Jewish safety! I bring up these equivalent circumstances not to justify Israeli actions but to PROVE that for you people, for you Nazis, you actually don't give a shit about what the IDF does. You don't care.

Because if you really cared about ethnic cleansing, genocide, terrorism, colonialism, apartheid, etc. Then you would oppose those things when they happen to Jews. You wouldn't post Tik Toks saying that the Houthis (who perpetrated a genocide) are based or waiting for khomeini (who colonized Iran) to destroy Israel. You wouldn't post support for the PPC claiming the uyghers aren't going through the stages of genocide lol.

So no, I don't have any intention of talking to you about how I oppose Israel's actions. Because you have proven that you would simply use this as justification to kill Jews. When you support Hamas, an organization who has vowed to annihilate every single Jew around the globe and to expel them from their homeland, you lose the right to fucking nuance from ME, bro.

And you Especially lose it after making fun of me personally, mocking me, and accusing me of writing "fanfiction" like a single sentence qualifies. You fucking moron.

[enbetweenisaurus-flex]

It's very fine and good to criticize the US from a foreign perspective, even if that perspective is also very propagandized. Just remember it is never as clear cut as "country bad, so other country good". Just because America bombards us with anti Chinese propaganda doesn't mean China doesn't do the very same shit or even more. There's a reason Hong Kong did not want to rejoin China. Or did you forget all the authoritarian disappearing of protesters, their direct interference in Taiwanese politics, the Uygher genocide, the strict information control (if you thought the Tiktok ban was crazy...), the denial of atrocities (lots of Chinese people don't know about or believe in the Tiananmen massacre), the treatment of the populace during COVID, their tacit support of Russia in Ukraine, their continued support of North Korea (sure the West pressures them into these unholy alliances, but policies are policies), and their dismal public safety record (not talking about policing, which is definitely extremely harsh, but about building and health codes which are either not in place or not followed and result in large scale deaths and disease).

I'm not a fan of America, I don't think China deserves the hatred Americans are propagandized to have of it. But these no nuance calls to completely reverse the propaganda and praise China for being a communist utopia make me want to scream.

being on this app is so surreal. americans are usually the ones that learn about other places and people everywhere else already know about america because we're everywhere online. we've never been on the opposite side where other people are learning about us -- and they are horrified about our "normal"

the country america spent our whole lives trying to convince us is miserable and suffering under an oppressive government that starves everyone and controls their media? that's just projection. turns out besides like... housing prices and few available jobs, china is doing pretty great. they originally believed we were all living it up "the american dream" way and now they're all thankful they were born in china and have no idea how any of us are even alive

[transbeckett]

wait why the fuck why have so many people been denying the uygher genocide recently

[redvelvetwishtree]

1000% true.

[weemietime]

The amount of western leftists who openly and publicly say shit like "long live Joseph Stalin" and call themselves "Mao's wife" on one hand while screeing "stop the genocide" on the other and reblogging literal Russian propaganda about how there's no oppression in Ukraine and the Uyghers are all just fine, lmfao, are you fucking serious rn. Shut up

been in Zionist spaces my entire life, not a single one had ever said "hiw dare brown people exist" and in fact most of them were not even white-passing.

meanwhile, the amount of times western leftists have told me to kys before i even changed the banner of this blog, the amount of western leftists who had the most insane antisemetic takes on how Zionists contril the entire world's media and have been obsessed with this concept on almost every single post, the amount of western leftists who have gone into my askbox on October 8th. October 8th!!! a day after the massecare to tell me how my family should have died, should have been burned alive in front of my eyes. the death threats, death wishes, before 2023 i was considered a PoC but now im white apparently, the amount of western leftist that either completely disregard of Mizrahi experience or judt use it as a shield, the amount of western leftists who fantisize abiut war because it is their new fandom now, the amount of western leftists who dont consider that this is real life with real people getting fucking UGH

the amount of western leftists who dont realise Zionists are marching up in front of the Knesset. the amount of western leftists who we thought we we're the greatest allies of.

let me tell you something, @demilypyro

on October 8th, your people have already abandoned Israeli leftists, abandoned Mizrahi Jews, abandoned us in general

you can't blame that on Israel because a day after the massecar your people were already celebrating our deaths.

fuck off.

[hayatheauthor]

Ramadan Kareem everyone 🫶 During this holy month, please remember the Palestinians, Uyghurs, Sudanese, Congolese, Kashmiris, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenis, and all our suffering Muslim brothers and sisters in your duas. Be grateful for the Suhoor and Iftar you eat, the water you drink, the new clothes and decorations you buy, the family gatherings and simple joys; because many members of our Ummah are deprived of these simple joys. The least we can do for them is pray for their safety and prosperity.

[antifainternational]

i hope you know that a majority of BBCs info on what's happening in XinJiang comes from Adrian Zenz, a German far-right antisemite who's estimates on the numbers of Uyghers detained come from figures of remote villages applied to the entire region. The figures that the BBC and other news organizations repeats come from his baseless research. He founded a "victims of communism" group. This situation has more nuance than western propaganda would like you to believe. Do better.

We hope you know that anonymously making claims without substantiation, citations, or evidence doesn't amount to much and without substantiation, citations, or evidence kinda sounds like you're deliberately trying to cast doubt on a genocide, which would of course make you complicit in it. We hope you also know that being opposed to communism does not automatically invalidate any criticisms of the human rights violations of a socialist country. Do better. Meanwhile, here's an article from the New York Times with eyewitness accounts of forced sterilization of Uyghur women; a story from NPR about what the Uyghurs are facing in Xinjiang; a report from an independent thinktank that examined the evidence of genocide; and a book by George Washington University professor Sean R. Roberts on the subject.

[woman-respecter]

you're a cracker and american your opinion on geopolitics is literally less than irrelevant and uniformed. like a little baby's

my opinion on geopolitics will always matter more than a loser who thinks stalin was a good guy or denies the genocide of uyghers by china, die mad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[alexanderpusheen]

what frustrates me the most abt this china narrative is that the US created al qaeda and ISIS, those groups are recruiting and causing terrorism in xinjiang, china has been trying to handle the situation with re-education programs often suggested by westerners, and its still being treated as this major human rights violation. there are actually dozens of countries with several robust anti radicalization programs that are just as strict, like singapore, colombia, yemen, bangladesh, saudi arabia, and indonesia. this paper ive linked to was even funded by the DHS so like...why has detaining someone and basically reverse brainwashing them out of being a terrorist been so acceptable for so long but now its an issue? 

if you take issue with chinas program, you have to prove its somehow exceptional to these other programs. since we really dont have any way of knowing what is truth or reality thanks to the enormous disinformation campaign going on, you fucking cant. we dont even know what the programs entail because even googling it gets you exclusively hyperbolic concentration camp accusations. 

what i will say is that relations between the han majority and the uyghur minority have been strained since at least the 80s. link is the notoriously conservative and pro US intervention human rights watch, so dont say im using pro commie sources or anything. every time i do any bit of research on this i seem to find an attempt from major news outlets in the early to mid 2000s or late 20-teens to prove this all started or became dramatically worse now, but things have always been tense. and its not really a surprise that things really got bad after the collapse of the soviet union, an event that was geographically close to china and the xinjiang region and also just like, a fucking major global event in general.

what i find to be very odd is just how dramatically the narrative has changed. the diplomat, one of my favorite periodicals, went from taking very nuanced and balanced positions on xinjiang that i almost completely agreed with to being just as aggressive as outlets like the BBC and CNN in the span of five years. they have eleven pages worth of articles on xinjiang, mostly covering the terrorism and beijings response (which i agree is too harsh) and xinjiang muslims’ relationships to the greater muslim world. 

an example is how this article talks about the conflict at the time which warns of escalating violence as a result of han chauvinism and beijing being unable to deal with the extremism holistically. it points out how there were uyghurs captured among taliban ranks in afghanistan and how many might have even been working with ISIL.

The threat will not be an existential one to the Chinese state, as most Uighurs would prefer a peaceful accommodation. But even if only 1 percent of Uighurs hold extreme views, there are 10 million in Xinjiang and even for a state security apparatus as formidable as China’s, 100,000 or more angry people present a tough challenge.

i think its totally right that china does not allow people in that area to have cars, woodcutting tools, and amonium nitrate (which is used in bombs) is very strictly regulated. i completely agree that this is not how you combat terrorism. most people do not want war and broadly punishing these people is itself a human rights violation that went unnoticed until now.

however, in that same year, the diplomat also published this article about the infamous turkestan islamic party. members of TIP are like, literal jihadists lmfao.

TIP fighters call on the world’s Muslims to join the jihad against Western countries in internet videos. Perhaps most worringly for China, the TIP believes that Muslims may fight locally using various means instead of coming to Syria and Iraq to conduct a “holy war” against the “infidel” Western regimes.  

yeah i definitely want to hear more about what these guys have to say. the article is really good because i think it highly illustrates just how dangerous these people are. theyve killed hundreds of people across china and want to establish a fascist religious state in xinjiang. while the article speaks for itself, i believe the last paragraph really highlights why china is being singled out whereas countries like france and canada are considered allies to muslims for whatever reason:

However, as experience has shown, China takes a passive position in the struggle against global Islamic jihad in Syria and Iraq. Beijing has not sent its troops to the Middle East to fight ISIS and has instead confined itself to diplomatic support for Russia and the United States. The Chinese government uses the attacks of Islamic jihadists to persuade Western countries to support Beijing’s position on Xinjiang and turn a blind eye when the freedom and rights of Uyghurs are harshly suppressed by Chinese security forces. Therefore, China is not perceived by the West as a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism. [emphasis mine]

im just a little surprised to see that a lot of these violent attacks from extremists throughout the years have targeted not just han chinese but also other uyghurs. in the west people do not typically sympathize with terrorists as freedom fighters, even on the left, because we know that no matter how angry or how seemingly justified the violence might seem, terrorism is unacceptable and it grossly misrepresents islam. it is a fascist act because those terrorists often follow an extremely right wing version of islam. also, we know that those who carry out terrorist attacks even outside of the west are middle class and professionals in some way, not poor and marginalized people. the level of nuance afforded to terrorists outside of xinjiang is pretty staggering. 

yet in china, there seems to be this excitement than they are killing chinese people, even if some of those chinese are other uyghers or otherwise muslims. those who carry out attacks in xinjiang dont get any nuance or analysis because theyre justified.

ive referenced the diplomat earlier but this article from 2013 says it perfectly: Call Tiananmen Attack What It Was: Terrorism. except terrorism is bad. and the west wants you to support the uyghurs. and make no mistake, they do not want you to support the millions of uyghurs who want to live peacefully, free of any repression, american or chinese. they want you to support the jihadists randomly blowing up chinese and tourists alike because you are meant to sympathize with their plight.

terrorism isnt something to be romantacized or cheered on. it is something someone or someones do when they feel they have no other option. people do not want to kill even those they feel they have every right to because thats a line you cant uncross. murder changes you, justified or not. see the last chapter of wretched of the earth for this.

terrorism is great, however, for destabilizing a region or a country, and xinjiang is resource-rich. establishing a US-friendly regime, no matter how good they are on human rights, is the goal. the US does not care about muslims. they do not care about human rights. china, also, does not really seem to care about muslims or human rights either. but we’ve seen this since vietnam, and the US has learned since vietnam. the vietnamese were sympathetic. they were minding their business. 

after vietnam, merely being communist isnt enough to warrant invasion. theyre killing their own people. nevermind that bolsonaro kills his own people and no one wants to invade (yet--biden has mention sanctions wrt us which is scary but again, thats got everything to do with making sure latin america is loyal to the west, not HR offenses). korea, although it was before vietnam, was less publicized and learning from vietnam gave the US a valuable lesson: always blame the victim. and thus, the US blames the victims of its violence. even if its ‘justified’, even if its ‘true,’ as was the case with saddam hussein, invading and occupying was the nightmare no one but the imperialists anticipated. because they dont broadcast what occupying forces do to the occupied. i am old enough to remember abu ghraib. have it seared in my memory forever. you perhaps are also old enough to remember, but also think millions of abu ghraibs and guantanamo bays are always worth it, always justified. 

i know people arent going to read this and remind me really rudely that they didnt read it but i want to really emphasize how one of imperialism and colonialisms features is ethnic and racial separatism. how the rwandan genocide couldnt have happened without previous belgian and french rule. how yugoslavia wouldve remained a single country had it not been for NATO. i think its easy to diminish the role of the colonizer in all of this, but it is actually one of its goals: divide and conquer. exacerbate the existing conflicts to the point of genocide. 

and if the west succeeds in balkanizing china, you will get more racism rather than less. you will see more violence against muslim minorities rather than less. they will feel less empowered rather than more. china has to learn that they are also to blame in a way that will be catastrophic for over a billion people. han chauvinism and outright racism must be addressed beyond window dressing.

wrapping up, china is in the wrong here. what theyre doing is racist and humiliating a population that has to be empowered. and the one child rule, even for the han majority, is imo fucking evil lol like sorry tankie tumblr im tankie too but i cannot for the life of me accept that as a good thing.... but i also dont buy the accusations of genocide, because even tho a lot of these articles are kind of glossing over it, china is trying to handle the terrorism in the region. imo theyre feeding into it by getting more han in the area, but also having more han but forcing them to take worse jobs would be a show of good will. idk, this situation is extremely complex and frankly, most uyghers do not want secession. 

i also take extreme issue with people saying that adrian zenz is somehow reliable. not only is he a nazi crackpot, hes also literally the only source for almost all of what we know about this in the west. that is not how you do journalism. i dont understand how people are saying ‘yeah hes an extremely fascist grifter but also i believe him because hes anti communist and also anti china’. thats also not really the point? the point is that hes also the ONLY SOURCE on almost all of this, which is alarming. 

i also find it very startling that in order to keep interest in the story, every few weeks the US has to remind people that the chinese are also doing what the US is doing to women in its own camps. forget that the US is separating minors from parents (since 2008). forget that the US is sterilizing women en masse (since 2017). forget that the US is raping women at the border (since there was a border). forget the US even has camps because now they arent even called that anymore. this is not that ‘you can be angry at two things at once’ but a clearly cynical attempt to get its citizens to forget that the US is detaining, deporting, sterilizing, and raping, and gassing non US nationals. 

they are not ‘your own people.’ they are me. the other. i am an immigrant to the US, currently in my country of birth, so i am the other to you, the american. the chinese are doing the evil crime of killing their own. but the americans could never kill their own because they dont consider black americans to be their own. latin american nationals are not their own. bombing millions globally is not their own. thats always justifiable. there is clearly an element of racism in how these crimes are perceived as more or less evil.

the way immigrants and black americans are brutalized in the US is almost naturalized. like its the way things are supposed to be. you can live with that. its upsetting that you have to hear about antiblackness and the like but you know thats just how life is. you dont necessarily call for the US to be sanctioned or bombed by other countries because you believe in the inherent goodness of white america. but countries like china and iran and north korea deserve to be starved and killed for their crimes. and you can never say ‘maybe bombing and starving a country isnt the answer’ because it means you agree with it. you can never say ‘this is clearly propaganda to make me hate another race so much’ because it means youre a genocide denier. im sorry, but again, i remember iraq in 2003, i remember libya in 2011. i dont buy it.

finally, theres been a lot of attacks on asian people in the US lately and if you cannot see the violent way the US talks about china the country and how that influences people to harm asians within the US then idk what else to tell you. people will really believe this shit and say the chinese are all blood thirsty islamaphobes and thus need to be harmed. ‘im not like that! i defend my asian friends from racism!’ thats nice and all but idk how spreading some sinophobic propaganda designed by the US to make you support some kind of violence against one billion chinese people isnt inherently racist. also its unhelpful because sanctions dont really solve problems. but ive spoken too much.

[raven]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/uygh-n28.html

i think this is generally a better article on whats happening in xinjiang because it brings up how basically every american source on it has ties to the us government, and how the united states is taking interest in right wing uygher separatists to weaken china, just like they did with al qaeda.

although it doesnt touch specifically on the prominent uygher activist rushan abbas who has had ties to the cia for decades. please look into everyone cited in any article about the genocide for things like this.

like uyghers are being oppressed and their culture is being erased little by little but the numbers are being completely made up and we just cannot know for certain, and you need to make sure you are not just spreading american propaganda.

[bountyofbeads]

More than 100 Uyghur graveyards demolished by China, satellite images show

https://cnn.it/2QHNlSP

This is a heartbreaking and difficult story to read and watch. What is happening to the Uighur(Uygher) community within China is characteristic to what happened to the Jews under Nazi occupation under Hitler. Xi Jinping is a trying to literally erase an entire population in Xinjiang. THIS CANNOT STAND IN 2020. China MUST be HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

More than 100 Uyghur graveyards demolished by Chinese authorities, satellite images show

By Matt Rivers, Lily Lee and Yong Xiong,

Updated 1451 GMT (2251 HKT) January 2, 2020 | CNN | Posted Jan. 2, 2020 |

Beijing (CNN)Uyghur poet Aziz Isa Elkun fled China's far western Xinjiang region nearly 30 years ago.

He's not welcome in the country. He can't even phone his mother. She said it was better if he didn't, because every time he did, police would show up at her door.

So, when Elkun's father died in 2017, there was no way he could go back to China for the burial. To be closer to his family, he would view his father's grave on Google Earth.

"I know exactly where his tomb is," Elkun told CNN in his north London home. "When I was a kid we would go there, pray at the mosque, visit our relatives. The entire community was connected to that graveyard."

He "visited" his father like this for nearly two years. But in June, something changed. The satellite photo on Google had been updated and the graveyard that used to be there was now nothing more than a flattened, empty field.

"I had no idea what happened," said Elkun. "I was completely in shock."

[VIDEO >>The Sultanim Cemetery in the center of Hotan City is one of the most famous ancient cemeteries in Xinjiang. It was destroyed between January to March 2019.]

CEMETERIES DESTROYED

Elkun's story is not unique.

China appears to have been destroying traditional Uyghur cemeteries for several years as part of what critics describe as a broader, coordinated  campaign to control Islamic beliefs and Muslim minority groups within its borders.

In a months' long investigation, working with sources in the Uyghur community and analyzing hundreds of satellite images, CNN has found more than 100 cemeteries that have been destroyed, most in just the last two years. This reporting was backed up by dozens of official Chinese government notices announcing the "relocation" of cemeteries.

The destruction of Uyghur cemeteries was first reported in October by French news agency AFP and satellite imagery analysts Earthrise Alliance. They found at least 45 cemeteries had been destroyed since 2014.

AFP reporters visited several sites of destroyed cemeteries. In some, they found several bones that scientists later confirmed from photos were human remains

[VIDEO >>The graveyard in Xayar County, central Xinjiang, where Aziz Isa Elkun father's Isa Abdulla was buried after he died on in November 3rd, 2017.]

CNN has identified more than 60 other gravesites that are no longer there, by cross-checking sites known to the Uyghur community abroad with satellite images taken over a number of years.

In response to CNN's request for comment, the Chinese government didn't deny the cemetery destruction.

A spokesperson with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement in part, "Governments...in Xinjiang fully respect and guarantee the freedom of all ethnic groups... to choose cemeteries, and funeral and burial methods."

One official notice announcing the "relocation" of a cemetery in western Aksu City said it needed to be moved "to meet the demand of city planning and promote construction."

CNN shared before and after images with five experts from Canada, the United States and Australia with experience in Uyghur culture or satellite imagery. They included Rian Thum, a respected historian who uses satellite imagery as part of his research into Islam in China.

[VIDEO>>This cemetery was located in downtown Aksu City, Xinjiang. It was destroyed sometime between March and April, 2018.]

Thum confirmed the majority of the satellite images shared with him were undoubtedly destroyed cemeteries. The other four experts verified the rest of the sites.

"It is a phenomenon that stretches right across the region of Xinjiang," said Thum.

At a press conference on December 16, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that citizens' freedom of religious belief is strongly protected in Xinjiang and that local people endorsed the Chinese government's measures to "fight terrorism and maintain stability."

[VIDEO>>This cemetery was located northwest of the city of Aksu, Xinjiang. It was destroyed and relocated between February and March 2019.]

HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS

China is under intense and unwelcome international scrutiny after the release of documents that appear to confirm that it is deliberately trying to alter the Uyghur people to be more like the wider mandarin-speaking Han Chinese population.

The US State Department has said up to two million people from Muslim ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, have been held in a massive network of detention camps since 2017.

China's government has consistently denied it is committing human rights abuses. It says the camps are voluntary vocational training centers, designed to stamp out religious extremism that has led to terrorist attacks.

In July, China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region Chairman Shohrat Zakir described the camps as "vocational training centers."

"They are not concentration camps as called by some people," he said. "People arrive and leave constantly ... Most have already gone back to society."

[VIDEO>>Leaked documents reveal China's brutal treatment of Muslims 05:25]

But leaked documents released by international media in November detailed a co-ordinated program of "ideological" re-education in heavily fortified detention centers,  undermining Beijing's narrative.

It isn't the first evidence of a coordinated campaign against Uyghur citizens. Multiple former detainees have told CNN they were tortured inside the camps and forced to pledge loyalty to China's Communist Party.

Leaked video earlier this year showed prisoners being led from a train, while under heavy guard, blindfolded and shackled.

Outside the camps, it appears the government is trying to erase key elements of Uyghur culture.

More than a million Chinese public servants have been sent to stay with Uyghur families to ensure that they acted sufficiently patriotically. Satellite imagery and media reports suggest mosques have been destroyed across the region.

"This is absolutely a massive effort to eradicate Uyghur culture as we know it and replace it with a Chinese communist party approved culture," said Thum.

At a press conference on December 16, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that citizens' freedom of religious belief is strongly protected in Xinjiang and that local people endorsed the Chinese government's measures to "fight terrorism and maintain stability."

'GATHERING PLACES

Cemeteries are important in every culture, but perhaps more so in Uyghur culture. Cemeteries are central to village life, a place to meet and connect one generation to the last.

"It's akin for an American to see Arlington cemetery razed and the tomb of the unknown soldier dug up and paved over," said Thum.

"People would come to a shrine or cemetery from all over the Uyghur region for the annual pilgrimage festival... People pray for health and blessings, meet neighbors, share communal feasts and shop at carnival-like markets."

Experts and activists said cemeteries that had existed for hundreds of years were wiped out in a matter of months.

According to Uyghur activists and documents, the Sultanim Cemetery in the center of southwestern Hotan had existed in one form or another for more than 1,000 years, and was one of the most spiritually significant resting places in the city.

According to satellite images, it was completely flattened by April 2019.

Some cemeteries were redeveloped quickly with seeming disregard for the spiritual places they once were, the investigation by AFP showed, paved over and seeded with modern buildings.

[VIDEO>>Part of the Sultanim Cemetery appears to now be a parking lot.]

CNN also found multiple public documents online confirming cemetery relocation in several different cities.

The May 2017 notice gave relatives just over two weeks to come and register their loved ones' graves before the removal and relocation work started. "Those graves that have not been registered within the date will be seen as unclaimed graves," the notice said.

What happened to the unclaimed graves was not mentioned.

Other official reasons for the destruction include wanting to build "civilized" cemeteries to "promote cultural and ideological progress."

[VIDEO>>Reporter: Uyghurs say camps meant to eradicate culture 03:30]

'CULTURAL GENOCIDE '

Aziz Isa Elkun doesn't know what happened to his father's remains.

Contacting his remaining family in Xinjiang, he believes, is too dangerous. For those living in the region, contact with the outside world often brings increased police scrutiny.

Amnesty International has reported that those who take calls from abroad are sometimes detained by authorities. Elkun himself is terrified that his 78-year-old mother, who he believes is not in great health, could be swept up in the dragnet by his actions.

He even fears that speaking to the international media could have negative effects for his family inside the country. But Elkun said he believes has no choice but to speak out, calling what is going on in Xinjiang a "cultural genocide."

"We cannot live with (the government) together anymore, they've crossed too many red lines," he said.

[americanmysticom]

[RACKETEERING MARXIST CCP PONZI SCHEME] CCP GENOCIDE OF UYGHERS!! WILL MAKE THE CCP CONTINUALLY PAY THE PRICE!!!

China Has NOT Beaten Covid (Mass Testing) - Episode #37

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJNmTlyGUDA&t=1177s&ab_channel=ADVPodcasts