Amplifying Human Rights Watch Report on the Renaming of Uyghur Villages in East Turkestan
June 25th, 2024
A groundbreaking Human Rights Watch report detailing the systematic erasure of Uyghur cultural and historical identities through the renaming of villages in East Turkestan demands an urgent, incisive response from Canada and the international community. The policy systematically renames over 600 villages, replacing Uyghur names that resonate culturally, historically, and religiously with terms like "Happiness" and "Harmony" to advance a homogenized, politicized narrative that dilutes and aims to erase Uyghur ethnic identities. This familiar strategy aligns with well-documented but insufficiently countered grievous human rights abuses in the region, including mass detentions and surveillance of Uyghurs.
“This unconscionable policy is a stark manifestation of cultural genocide. It’s not merely an administrative action but a deliberately severing of Uyghur connection to their land, language and history,” expressed Taha Ghayyur, Executive Director. “It is not enough to condemn; we must act to prevent the obliteration of a rich cultural tapestry that once lost can never be fully reclaimed, as we’ve learned from other genocides of similar Indigenous peoples,” added Ghayyur.
Personal accounts described in the report show how deeply consequential the renaming of villages in East Turkestan has been. One Uyghur described a sense of profound disorientation and loss after being released from a re-education camp and unable to recognize the new name of their own village. This also posed difficulty in accessing essential services because their records no longer matched their historical village name. These stories are clear evidence that the renaming policy goes beyond just administrative reasons and instead disrupts the social fabric of one’s cultural heritage.
This effort to erase the religious and cultural expressions forms part of the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, which has been explicitly denounced by the Canadian House of Commons as well as the Canadian Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In fact, this is not the first instance of efforts to suppress Uyghur culture. For example, since 2017 Chinese authorities have damaged or destroyed two-thirds of East Turkestan’s mosques under various pretexts. In the historic city of Kashgar the Chinese government has been removing minarets from mosques, painting over Arabic calligraphy, and installing surveillance cameras in the prayer halls. The destruction of cultural and religious property is considered part of the late stages of genocide.
Justice For All Canada, a genocide-prevention organization, asserts that the names of places, like the language and daily practices of a people, are intrinsic to their identity and survival. They are not just geographical identifiers but repositories of history and culture. As the Chinese state deliberately repurposes these names, it signals an attempt to rewrite Uyghur history and reconfigure the cultural landscape in favour of a singular national narrative that excludes important minority histories.
Such renaming of villages in East Turkestan is not an isolated issue but a symptom of a much larger crisis: a clear indicator of the Chinese government's disregard for international norms and its continued violation of the human rights of Uyghurs. Immediate, unified, and robust international action is imperative to uphold these communities' rights to maintain and celebrate their cultural identities. Justice For All Canada continues to amplify Uyghur grievances and raise awareness aimed at addressing and resolving these human rights violations.
A groundbreaking Human Rights Watch report detailing the systematic erasure of Uyghur cultural and historical identities through the renaming of villages in East Turkestan demands an urgent, incisive response from Canada and the international community. The policy systematically renames over 600 villages, replacing Uyghur names that resonate culturally, historically, and religiously with terms like "Happiness" and "Harmony" to advance a homogenized, politicized narrative that dilutes and aims to erase Uyghur ethnic identities. This familiar strategy aligns with well-documented but insufficiently countered grievous human rights abuses in the region, including mass detentions and surveillance of Uyghurs.
“This unconscionable policy is a stark manifestation of cultural genocide. It’s not merely an administrative action but a deliberately severing of Uyghur connection to their land, language and history,” expressed Taha Ghayyur, Executive Director. “It is not enough to condemn; we must act to prevent the obliteration of a rich cultural tapestry that once lost can never be fully reclaimed, as we’ve learned from other genocides of similar Indigenous peoples,” added Ghayyur.
Personal accounts described in the report show how deeply consequential the renaming of villages in East Turkestan has been. One Uyghur described a sense of profound disorientation and loss after being released from a re-education camp and unable to recognize the new name of their own village. This also posed difficulty in accessing essential services because their records no longer matched their historical village name. These stories are clear evidence that the renaming policy goes beyond just administrative reasons and instead disrupts the social fabric of one’s cultural heritage.
This effort to erase the religious and cultural expressions forms part of the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, which has been explicitly denounced by the Canadian House of Commons as well as the Canadian Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In fact, this is not the first instance of efforts to suppress Uyghur culture. For example, since 2017 Chinese authorities have damaged or destroyed two-thirds of East Turkestan’s mosques under various pretexts. In the historic city of Kashgar the Chinese government has been removing minarets from mosques, painting over Arabic calligraphy, and installing surveillance cameras in the prayer halls. The destruction of cultural and religious property is considered part of the late stages of genocide.
Justice For All Canada, a genocide-prevention organization, asserts that the names of places, like the language and daily practices of a people, are intrinsic to their identity and survival. They are not just geographical identifiers but repositories of history and culture. As the Chinese state deliberately repurposes these names, it signals an attempt to rewrite Uyghur history and reconfigure the cultural landscape in favour of a singular national narrative that excludes important minority histories.
- We call on the Canadian government, as recently exemplified by Ambassador Jennifer May's discussions with Xinjiang local leadership regarding grave human rights concerns, alongside the United Nations and all state actors, to recognize these acts as part of a systematic campaign of cultural destruction and genocide, as well as to categorize them as crimes against humanity.
- Furthermore, we urge the international community to intensify diplomatic and economic pressures on Beijing to cease these practices immediately and to restore the original names of these villages as part of a broader restitution and reconciliation process.
- We also appeal to global civil society and governmental bodies to bolster their support for measures that protect and preserve the cultural heritage of the Uyghur people.
Such renaming of villages in East Turkestan is not an isolated issue but a symptom of a much larger crisis: a clear indicator of the Chinese government's disregard for international norms and its continued violation of the human rights of Uyghurs. Immediate, unified, and robust international action is imperative to uphold these communities' rights to maintain and celebrate their cultural identities. Justice For All Canada continues to amplify Uyghur grievances and raise awareness aimed at addressing and resolving these human rights violations.