The Uyghur Genocide: a story of an Uyghur-American Activist
“Imagine that you’re in an environment where you are constantly surveilled. Authorities are breathing down your back not allowing you to express not only your cultural identity but your religious identity too.”
21 years ago, Uyghur-American Activist, Subihi Setiwaldi’s parents left East Turkestan and came to the United States for political asylum from China. Being Uyghur and Muslim, they came to the US to escape religious and ethnic persecution.
“My parents left before the situation got so bad. Before it was declared as a genocide,” she said.
Subihi Setiwaldi attends a protest in Washington DC to bring awareness to the Uyghur Genocide
“My parents left before the situation got so bad. Before it was declared as a genocide”
Uyghurs, also spelled Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from Central and East Asia and native to the region in Northwest China known as East Turkestan or Xinjiang. With a population of about 11 million, Uyghurs are majority Muslim and differ from Han Chinese in religion, language and culture.
The persecution of Uyghurs and Uyghur Muslims started in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gained control of China. The CCP annexed the region previously known as the East Turkestan Republic where the Uyghurs lived and renamed it Xinjiang. Since then they have settled the land with Han Chinese who now make up about half the population of the region
After 9/11 in 2001 and the US war on terror, China started its own war on terror as an excuse to surveil and detain Uyghurs and Uyghur Muslims in East Turkestan. Uyghurs have been a persecuted minority in China for decades but the situation has gotten worse in the last couple of decades.
Setiwaldi’s older siblings spent their early childhood in Chinese occupied East Turkestan before her family sought asylum in the United States. She the first in her family to be born in the States.
Subihi Setiwaldi wears traditional Uyghur clothing at a photoshoot for VELA Scarves
“My dad decided it was not safe for us to stay there,” said Setiwaldi. “When they were staying there, not only were they facing discrimination but they were also being assimilated and integrated into Chinese culture. Instead of learning our language at the schools, they were taught Chinese.”
After her family left, things got worse for the Uyghurs in Chia. In late 2018, reports surfaced with evidence that the Chinese government has been surveilling, torturing and mass detaining Uyghurs in East Turkestan. Hundreds of thousands were detained in concentration camps for practicing their religion.
For months, the Chinese government refused to acknowledge the existence of these camps at first but eventually said they were “re-education camps” created to train Uyghurs and redeploy them into the workforce.
Through its surveillance and media control, the Chinese government continues to try to hide the reality of the situation. However, investigative reports found evidence that the government had not only been detaining people, but forcibly sterilizing the women to diminish and ethnically cleanse the population, and harvesting and selling the organs of living Uyghurs.
About a year ago, Setiwaldi and her family lost contact with many of their relatives that still lived in East Turkestan.
“We say they’re missing because we don't know what's going on with them. We don't know if they're dead, we don't know if they're in the camps, because we lost all contact with them,” said Setiwaldi. Many relatives have stopped contacting them out of fear of China’s surveillance and facing repercussions. “We'd be in contact with them one day, and the next day, they just disappear. Their numbers get deleted, or they just tell us ‘Don't ever contact me again.’”
Constantly under surveillance, Uyghurs cannot contact people overseas or practice their religion out of fear of punishment.
“When I still had contact with my relatives, they would send us pictures but it was of them not wearing hijabs. They were wearing hoodies or beanies because if they wore hijab this could lead to detainment,” said Setiwaldi
Those who are detained also forced into labor. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute issued a report in March 2020 about the Uyghur forced labor and a list of 82 companies, including Nike, Apple and Samsung, that use that forced labor to create their products.
To date, China has built over 380 detainment sites and, by most estimates, detained over a million people.
“Everything feels kind of surreal to me because I didn’t grow up in the land. I was born here,” said Setiwaldi “I don’t know how I would turn out if I was there. I’m just so glad that my parents moved here 21 years ago”
Using her privilege of being born in the States, Setiwaldi uses her voice to spread awareness about what’s going on. Originally an art major, she switched to journalism and political science and joined Amnesty international USA as a student activist coordinator.
In 2019 she went to DC to lobby for a bill that would condemn the actions of China and call for the end of the detainment and torture of this marginalized group and met with Representative Ilhan Omar who co-sponsored the bill.
Earlier this year the United States joined several countries including Canada and the Netherlands to condemn China’s repressive actions against Uyghurs and call it a genocide.
“I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Many Uyghurs don’t speak out about what’s going on for fear of the Chinese government. Even those abroad fear that their relatives back home might be detained.
“I’m always afraid that I won’t be able to go back”
“I’m always afraid that I won’t be able to go back,” said Setiwaldi with a heavy sigh. “When I went there 8 years ago I feel like that was my first and last time to go there.” But she doesn’t let that stop her from speaking up. “If you stop advocating, that is what they want so I’m going to continue to do it.”
Taking to social media, Setiwaldi is critical of the 2022 Olympic Games in China, joining many critics who draw parallels between these Games and the Games in Nazi Germany in 1933. Both games covered up the host countries’ atrocities toward religious minorities.
She is now working to lobby for a new bill, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, introduced in February, which would ban any good made by Uyghur forced labor from entering the US market.
“With this issue, legislative action is the only way to solve it,” she said. “Protests help and writing about it helps.”
Written by Hanin Najjar
