International concern rising from human rights groups concerned about worsening Uyghur plight

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The following article is from the new blog, from Freedom House and is written by Rebiya Kadeer and Mark P. Lagon:

One of the government propaganda murals recently painted on walls next to a mosque in the Chinese Silk Road district of Kashgar portrays knife-wielding Uyghurs clad in black being crushed by a steamroller sporting the Chinese flag.

This is more than artistic license, and the repression of the Uyghur people by Chinese authorities is more than a niche issue. Since the crackdown by security services on peaceful demonstrators in July 2009 in Urumqi, the capital of the Uyghur “autonomous region” in China’s far west, the repression has been acute and rising. It includes a pervasive security presence, community informants, and periodic internet blackouts. It also reveals three larger truths.

First, it is of a piece with the overall human rights record of China, which is abysmal. Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil liberties, Freedom in the World, ranks China among the 16 least free nations, affecting one-fifth of the world’s population. Granted, the Chinese government has loosened economic controls, facilitating greater prosperity and some personal choice for citizens. Yet the Chinese Communist Party brooks no dissent or communication that might conceivably contradict its monopoly on political power. Moreover, such restrictions increasingly reach beyond the political, encroaching on public health, private gatherings, and entertainment programming. Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, various previously tolerated activities have been harshly suppressed.