cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2223566

“Authoritarian legality:" China’s oppression, mass imprisonment of the Uyghur minority amounts to “genocide” the world “has not seen since World War II”, study says

Here is the study: Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression and Mass Imprisonment (pdf)

Chinese authorities sentences Uyghurs -a minority in Nothwestern China- to prison for an average of 9 years, including for “offences” such as wearing a hijab or sending money to family abroad.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to “legalize” and “normalize” Uyghur persecution by incorporating it into the pre-existing criminal justice system “undermining the possibility of a life of dignity, prosperity, and freedom for future generations as well,” the researchers say.

• Evidence indicates that trials against Uyghurs, if they happened at all, have been cursory and performative rather than substantive.There are countless documented arrests that were almost immediately followed by formal imprisonment in less than a month.

• The Uyghur population is currently set to suffer from a cumulative total of 4.4 million years of imprisonment, “undermining the possibility of a life of dignity, prosperity, and freedom for future generations as well,” the researchers say.

• Almost 90% of criminal records in Xinjiang are not public, even though legal records in other Chinese regions are, meaning that records of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs who are known to be imprisoned were unavailable for the context of this particular analysis.

• Additionally, the limited data available does not provide substantive information on incarcerations. There exist 13,088 entries for which no official reason for arrest or incarceration was made available to anyone, including families and loved ones, with 3,849 of those in- dividuals known to be incarcerated and 9,059 of those individuals whose status remains unclear.

• 25,155 entries [in the official the database] do not even have sentencing data, and most entries provide only unclear reasons for indictment, such as “Flagged by autonomous-region IJOP (一体化推送人员)” or “Four lines (meaning unclear) (四条线).”

The victims’ families were left in no better position when it came to transparency and communication of the victims’ status, in some cases being left oblivious to their family members’ imprisonment for years. The report cites case of Mr. Abdurahm Tohti’s family:

Mr. Tohti was living in Istanbul when he lost contact with his wife and two kids—the youngest being only five months old.31 Mr. Tohti’s entire family was sentenced to a total of 90 years after their disappearance 7 years ago, but only recently did Mr. Tohti learn of the sentencing through other locals. Mr. Tohti still does not know what his wife or kids were charged with. In another case, Uyghur professor and ethnographer Rahile Dawut’s daughter lost contact with her in 2017. Her daughter, who lives in the United States, did not hear any news regarding what had happened to her mother until four years later, in 2023—only to find out that she had been sentenced to life in prison. She has not spoken to her mother since, and is unable to ask anybody in Xinjiang for more details. This opaqueness has led to immense frustration and caused tremendous pain for Ms. Dawut’s daughter.

“These are merely emblematic examples. Many families have endured a similar fate, not knowing what happened to their loved ones after they disappeared,” the report says.