Whole writing plan and research project was born out of a controversial (and ridicules) white paper, Historical Matters Concerning Xinjiang, issued by China’s State Council Information Office in the summer of 2019, in which the Chinese government attempted to justify the legitimacy of its network of re-education camps that were being used to detain Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.
Today, the Chinese government’s systemic oppression against the cultural and religious practices of millions of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region is no longer a secret. In late 2019, The New York Times and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists co-published hundreds of pages of highly classified Chinese government documents. Since then, the operations manual for administering mass re-education camps in China’s Xinjiang region has slowly come to light, complete with a list of guidelines of how state officials can effectively perform surveillance and engage in predictive policing activities. But above operations beyond the borders of China.
In Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the rest of the world, many China-born ethnic emigrants and those whose friends and relatives are imprisoned in Xinjiang camps have been raising their voices in order to shed light on human rights violations being perpetrated by the Chinese government against their citizens or previous citizens.
However, the voice is not laud enough.
The voice form family members were often coerced not to publicize what was happening under threat of their lost loved one remaining in the camp or region indefinitely.
I always believe that the written personal experiences — in any forms — are the best way to resist for the forgotten and invisible voices from those who have been or are still suffering injustices; and it drives my passion for related academic research and non-academic writing. I named this serious of diary as “Off Xinjiang” as I wish all those who are suffering by the Chinese totalitarian rule could one day get away from the region; and hope those sharing information will generate increased attention on the ongoing violations of human rights both within the Xinjiang region and beyond.
“Off Xinjiang” will be a serious of the diary alongside the process of producing my MA thesis — actually, I am not sure what it will be. It might include critique, summary of the immediate media report, released testimony and evidence, introduction of history and region, or something I believe it is worth to record in my journey through completing an MA degree during the pandemic.
We are all experiencing an unprecedented quarantine, and writing down our anger, afraid, dispersion, and desire for afterwards; but even that, to those who has been detained in the re-education camps and their family, the quarantine will never end.
這系列會中英文混搭。
