Page 112 - Communist Chinas Policy of Oppression in East Turkestan
P. 112

108






                                          Russia

                           Kazakhstan
                                                    Mongolia


                        Kyrgyzstan
                                   East Turkestan
                   Tajikistan
                                                 China


                           Kashmir
                  Pakistan


                        India      Nepal
                                             Bhutan
                                                 Bangladesh




               the region was to eliminate Islam entirely. Throughout this period, a
               number of sanctions were employed in an attempt to destroy the Turks'
               national cultures; mosques and places offering religious instruction
               were closed down and religion was entirely divorced from social life.
               Crimean Turks were rounded up and exiled to Siberia in the course of a
               single night, and Russians were brought in to occupy their homes and
               lands. Furthermore, artificial ethnic conflicts were incited between the
               nations of Central Asia. Another of the Soviet regime's measures aimed
               at assimilating the Turks was to develop a second language alongside
               the mother tongues of the Muslims of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It
               is for this reason that Russian is now preferred to Turkish as a means of
               communication between the communities in question.
                    East Turkestan suffered similar oppression to that experienced in

               West Turkestan, but in an even more violent form. In the middle of the
               1700s, East Turkestan was invaded by the Chinese. The political




                               Communist China’s Policy
                            of Oppression in East Turkestan
   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117