In a shocking development, an educator and medical doctor named Sayragul Sautbay has revealed in a new book as to how Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are forced to eat pork, reported Al Jazeera. She had detailed about sexual abuse, physical abuse, forced sterilisation, and ill-treatment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province of China. Sautbay was kept in a ‘re-education camp’ in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang, and was released two years ago.
Sautbay stated, “Every Friday, we were forced to eat pork meat. They have intentionally chosen a day that is holy for the Muslims. And if you reject it, you would get a harsh punishment.” Recounting her experience, “I was feeling like I was a different person. All around me got dark. It was really difficult to accept.” She narrated that the policy was meant to shame and humiliate the Uyghur Muslims.
It is notable that pork is strictly prohibited in Islam, as it has been labelled as a Haram food.
Sautbay said that Muslims were made to eat pork, even outside detention camps. She informed that students in a school in Altay in northern Xinjiang were also force-fed pork and when many refused, the soldiers were sent in to take control of the situation. The educator stated that pork is being served to kindergarten children under the initiative of ‘free food.’ She conceded, “China is using and will use different tactics to force Uighurs and other Muslim population to eat pork.”
#Sayragul #Sautbay released a book about her experience at Chinese concentration camp (part 1). Chinese Genocide policy against the Native People of #EastTurkistan #Uygurs #Kazakhs #Kyrgyz #Uzbeks and #Tatars #IndepenceToEastTurkistan #FreeKazakhs pic.twitter.com/otlXJ9X6QQ
— FreeKazakhs (@FreeKazakhs) August 20, 2020
Uyghur businesswoman Zumret Dawut claimed, “When you sit in a concentration camp, you do not decide whether to eat, or not to eat. To be alive, we had to eat the meat served to us.” She had also conceded that she was served pork repeatedly. The Chinese government had also launched an “anti-halal campaign” in Urumqi in 2018, “to stop Islam penetrating secular life and fuelling ‘extremism’”.
Chinese government to grow pig farms for local consumption in Kashgar
According to German scholar Adrian Zenz, the policy adopted by the Chinese regime is a part of the plan to ‘secularise’ the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province. Adrian informed that a new farm has been set up in southern Kashgar area in Konaxahar county where 40,000 pigs are to be raised every year. As per documents, the government is making ‘active efforts’ to promote pig farming in Xinjiang. Top administrator Shohrat Zakir conceded that the province would be turned into a ‘pig-raising hub.’
Reportedly, the deal was signed on April 23, 2020, i.e. the first day of Ramzan. It has been stated that the pigs grown in farms are meant for local consumption in Kashgar and not for exports. The deal was signed, despite 90% of the inhabitants belonging to ethnic Uyghur Muslim minority group. “This is part of the attempt to completely eradicate the culture and religion of the people in Xinjiang. It is part of the strategy of secularisation, of turning the Uighurs secular and indoctrinating them to follow the communist party and become agnostic or atheist,” Adrian Zenz emphasised. The Chinese government had accused Adrian Zenz of ‘fabricating facts and falsifying data’ and blamed the US government.
Persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China
According to a 2017 report by the head of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, the increasing Muslim population in Xinjiang contributed to increased political risk, poverty, and extremism. One of the reasons cited behind their high birth rates was the Islamic belief that the foetus was a gift from God.
However, experts are of the view that it is a strategy of the Communist Party of China (CCP) to strip Uighurs of their religious and ethnic identity and assimilate them into the dominant Han Chinese ethnicity. While Uighur Muslims are often subjected to re-educational programs, forced labour, and digital surveillance, their children are indoctrinated in orphanages.
Reportedly, Uyghur Muslims have been the subject of a massive crackdown since 2017. They were held up in prisons for praying, travelling abroad, or even using social media under the pretext of containing ‘ religious extremism’. According to researcher Zenz, two county and townships have directed authorities to leave no ‘blind spots’, contain illegal births, and decrease fertility levels.