Even in death there is no respite for the Uighurs, one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, according to a new investigation that has revealed China is destroying burial grounds where generations of families have been interred.
China is destroying burial grounds where generations of Uighur families have been laid to rest, leaving behind human bones and broken tombs in what activists call an effort to eradicate the ethnic group’s identity in Xinjiang.
In just two years, dozens of cemeteries have been destroyed in the northwest region, according to an AFP investigation with satellite imagery analysts Earthrise Alliance that shows that the Chinese government has, since 2014, exhumed and flattened at least 45 Uighur cemeteries – including 30 in the past two years.
The latest investigation claims that the destruction of existing graveyards has been carried out with little respect for the dead – with AFP journalists discovering human bones discarded at three site and other sites where tombs were reduced to mounds of bricks.
Some of the graveyards have been turned into car parks and even playgrounds, as the pictures show.
Others were cleared with little care. In Shayar county, AFP journalists saw unearthed human bones left discarded in three sites. In other sites. tombs that were reduced to mounds of bricks lay scattered in cleared tracts of land.
The images appeared as Xinjiang authorities this week claimed their officials were carrying out ‘normal’ tasks after shocking footage purported to show hundreds of shackled and blindfolded Muslim prisoners being transferred.
While the official explanation ranges from urban development to the ‘standardisation’ of old graves, overseas Uighurs say the destruction is part of a state crackdown to control every element of their lives.
This is all part of China’s campaign to effectively eradicate any evidence of who we are, to effectively make us like the Han Chinese,’ said Salih Hudayar, who said the graveyard where his great-grandparents were buried was demolished.
‘That’s why they’re destroying all of these historical sites, these cemeteries, to disconnect us from our history, from our fathers and our ancestors,’ he said.
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Beijing has long sought to control the resource-rich region of Xinjiang, where decades of government-encouraged migration of the Han – China’s ethnic majority – have fuelled resentment among Uighurs.
China has dismissed the escalating global criticism of its treatment of Uighurs, denying there are any human rights issues in the region.
This week, the United States said it would curb visas for officials over the alleged abuses and blacklisted 28 Chinese facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology firms that it accuses of being implicated in the repression of the Muslim minority.
