Page 134 - Communist Chinas Policy of Oppression in East Turkestan

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thing that needed to be forgotten, a primitive belief belonging to the
lowest levels of Chinese society. That situation has rapidly begun to
distance young people from religious belief. He also added that the
government keeps a tight rein on Muslims' activities and that the com-
munists are using Islam merely as a tool with which to improve rela-
tions with Muslim nations. 17

The anti-religious pronunciations of the Chinese Communist Party
are not new. Allah reveals in the Qur'an that the deniers who op-
posed the Prophet Noah, peace be upon him, attempted to belittle
the believers with the words, "…We do not see you as anything
but a human being like ourselves. We do not see anyone follow-
ing you but the lowest of us, unthinkingly…" (Surah Hud: 27). In
another verse, Allah describes how deniers believe themselves to
be terribly clever:

When they are told, "Believe in the way that the people believe," they
say, "What! Are we to believe in the way that fools believe?" No indeed!
They are the fools, but they do not know it. (Surat al-Baqara: 13)
The Chinese Communist Party's attempts to portray religious de-
votion as "a primitive belief belonging to the very lowest levels of Chi-
nese society," is an example of this foolishness.

While the Communist Party uses such propaganda methods, it
also at the same time steps up its oppression of Muslims. Follow-
ing the initiatives demanding independence in the 1990s, (the
Baren uprising, the Gulja uprising) the oppression of Muslims was
stepped up even further. The way these uprisings spread to the
whole of East Turkestan, and the fact that Turks in public posts
also supported the demands for independence, greatly alarmed
Red China. It initiated another ruthless campaign against those
Muslims who had backed independence movements. Hundreds of
thousands of people were detained, thousands executed and tens
of thousands were sent to labor camps. Michael Winchester, one of

Communist China’s Policy
of Oppression in East Turkestan