On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Norwegian organization Uyghur Hjelp released a statement that revealed Chinese authorities in Xinjiang had changed the names of villages inhabited by Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities to reflect the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Out of the 25,000 Uighur villages in Xinjiang, 3,600 had their original names changed, with 630 of them originally referencing Islam or Uyghur culture and history.
According to HRW, these changes appear to be part of the Chinese regime’s efforts to erase the cultural and religious expressions of Uyghurs. Maya Wang, acting director for China affairs at HRW, stated that “the authorities also removed terms in village names that denote Uyghur cultural practices.”
The Xinjiang region is home to around 11 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, who are accused of being persecuted and repressed by Xi Jinping’s communist regime. Accusations of mass detentions, political indoctrination, forced labor, and family separation in the region have been cited by several authorities. More than 1 million Uighurs are estimated to have been detained in concentration camps, described by authorities as “vocational training centers.”
Abduweli Ayub, founder of Uyghur Hjelp, stated that concerned governments and the UN human rights office must intensify their efforts to hold the Chinese government accountable for its abuses in the Uighur region. He urged for pressure on Beijing to release the hundreds of thousands of unjustly imprisoned Uyghurs during upcoming sessions of the UN Human Rights Council and high-level bilateral meetings.
