Adeel Malik
People have become outraged over a video posted on the Uyghur dissident Facebook group Talk to East Turkestan on Saturday (May 26), which the group claims to show a forced wedding between a Chinese man and a Uyghur Muslim woman as part of China’s program to assimilate and pacify the ethic Muslim minority population in Xinjiang as reported by Taiwan News too.
In the video, a host of a wedding party appears to ask the Chinese groom how long he has known the bride, and he replies “two months.”
Instead of being happy, the Uyghur Muslim woman has a sad look on her face, as if she is being coerced into the wedding.
The person who uploaded the video indicated that it was an example of forced marriages between Han Chinese men and Uyghur Muslim women that the Chinese government is implementing to assimilate the ethnic minority group in Xinjiang Province.
“After locking up all the Uyghur males in concentration camps, China is forcing Uyghur women to marry Chinese men. A genocide is taking place in the open yet the international community including Turkic and Muslim countries continue to ignore the cries of their Uyghur Muslim brothers and sisters.”
Online users reacted angrily on Facebook to the post:
“How can we allow the world’s largest genocide to happen?”
“I think this is a very unhappy wedding.”
“Where is the international organization for the protection of women’s rights? How can they remain silent?”
“This is truly disgusting.”
“Ironically, the German chancellor also visited China to talk about human rights.”
“Even if this happened, many international human rights organizations have not taken action.”
In another post dated May 27, the dissident group uploaded the image below which states that Uyghur Muslim families are forced into having their daughters marry Chinese men, while the Uyghur men are locked up in “concentration camps.”
In another post also uploaded on May 27, the page lists eight aspects of China’s extensive assimilation policy in Xinjiang that has been underway since 1949:
- Sincization of Uyghur alphabet,
- censorship of Uyghur books,
- coercion of Uyghur intellectuals to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party of China,
- banning of traditional clothing,
- criminalization of “halal” labels,
- assigning Han officials to Uyghur families,
- banning Islamic names, and
- destroying historic buildings in Kashgar.
