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In yet another evidence of China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims, Beijing has removed the Uyghur language instruction from educational institutions in the Xinjiang region.
As per media reports, Keplin county in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) no longer offers Uyghur language instruction to students despite being home to a mostly Uyghur population and national laws guaranteeing minorities the right to bilingual education.
According to an audio recording made by an Uyghur man from Kelpin county who made a phone call to the Bureau of Education in his hometown and asked for information about how to place the children of his neighbors, who he claims are detained in an internment camp, in school… “A man who identified himself as an employee of the Kelpin Bureau of Education told the caller that he could bring the two children, reportedly aged five and seven, to the bureau offices. When the caller asked to clarify which language the children would study in, the bureau employee said that education in Kelpin is conducted in the “national language,” or Mandarin Chinese.”
On being questioned if it is possible for the medium of instruction to be Uyghur, the employee had said, “The national language is the standard now.”
“Speaking Uyghur language is not allowed [on school grounds],” the administrator said while adding, “Normally, it’s not even OK for us [staff] to speak to one another in Uyghur.”
China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.
Beijing, on the other hand, has denied that it is engaged in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Recently, a commission of the United States Congress, in a new report, said that China has possibly carried out “genocide” against Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang.
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