China Treats Uighur Kids As ‘Orphans’ After Parents Seized
ISTANBUL (AP) — Every
morning, Meripet wakes up to her nightmare: The Chinese government has turned
four of her children into orphans, even though she and their father are alive. Meripet and her
husband left the kids with their grandmother at home in China when they went to
nurse Meripet’s sick father in Turkey. But after Chinese authorities started
locking up thousands of their fellow ethnic Uighurs for alleged subversive
crimes such as travel abroad, a visit became exile. Then, her
mother-in-law was also taken prisoner, and Meripet learned from a friend that
her 3- to 8-year-olds had been placed in a de facto orphanage in the Xinjiang
region, under the care of the state that broke up her family. “It’s like my kids are
in jail,” Meripet said, her voice cracking. “My four children are separated
from me and living like orphans.”
Meripet’s family is
among tens of thousands swept up in President Xi Jinping’s campaign to subdue a
sometimes restive region, including the internment of more than 1 million
Uighurs and other Muslim minorities that has alarmed a United Nations panel and
the U.S.
government . Now there is evidence that the government is placing the
children of detainees and exiles into dozens of orphanages across Xinjiang. The orphanages are the
latest example of how China is systematically distancing young Muslims in
Xinjiang from their families and culture, Associated Press has found
through interviews with 15 Muslims and a review of procurement documents.
The
government has been building thousands of so-called “bilingual” schools, where
minority children are taught in Mandarin and penalized for speaking in their
native tongues. Some of these are boarding schools, which Uighurs say can be
mandatory for children and, in a Kazakh family’s case, start from the age of 5. China says the
orphanages help disadvantaged children, and it denies the existence of
internment camps for their parents. It prides itself on investing millions of
yuan in education in Xinjiang to steer people out of poverty and away from
terrorism. At a regular news briefing Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Geng Shuang said the measures taken in Xinjiang were necessary for
“stability, development, harmony” and to fight ethnic separatists..
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