{"id":1638,"date":"2020-05-03T01:59:40","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T16:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2020-05-03T01:59:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T16:59:40","slug":"xinjiang-authorities-construct-parking-lot-atop-historic-uyghur-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2020\/05\/03\/xinjiang-authorities-construct-parking-lot-atop-historic-uyghur-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"Xinjiang Authorities Construct Parking Lot Atop Historic Uyghur Cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2020-05-01<\/strong>
https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/cemetery-05012020134504.html?fbclid=IwAR1X3qQGnu0byX9d0DnWFuPnOvDT0wEOJ5EAvhQAqIHdFWwOLaJ0UAv_aM0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cemetery considered sacred by Uyghurs that was razed by authorities last year in northwest China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has been paved over and turned into a car park, according to an expert on Uyghur history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year, the Chinese government destroyed the central Uyghur graveyard and sacred shrine in [Hotan],\u201d Rian Thum, a professor of history at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said in a post to Twitter on April 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can now see part of what they have put in its place: a parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thum posted a time lapse view of the Sultanim Cemetery, in central Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) city, based on satellite imagery from Google Earth, which shows grave plots being gradually being plowed over with dirt beginning in 2019 and a parking lot being erected in the western portion of the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not just a run-of-the mill graveyard,\u201d Thum tweeted, including coordinates for others to use to find the site on Google Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a well-known sacred site, the only major one inside the city. People would go there to pray for healing, fertility, forgiveness, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thum also posted a photo taken by a photographer from Agence France-Presse last year showing a notice from local officials, informing residents that the cemetery was being destroyed \u201con the basis of the needs of our city\u2019s development,\u201d and to \u201cpromote a spacious, beautiful environment for all of the city\u2019s people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe graveyard and shrine destructions are part of a larger cultural cleansing campaign involving mass internment camps, forced labor, and child separation for Turkic minorities in China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Thum said, authorities have focused on \u201celiminating or desecrating Uyghur sacred shrines,\u201d including one to a well-known Muslim imam named Jafar Sadiq, which he described as \u201cone of the five most important Uyghur holy places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the parking lot in Hotan is one of the first cases in which outside observers have been able to see what was built over a graveyard, or \u201cmazar,\u201d that included an important religious shrine, although he noted that an AFP investigation last year revealed that a park had been constructed atop a cemetery that held the grave of renowned Uyghur poet Lutpulla Mutellip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to that investigation, which AFP conducted with Earthrise Alliance and published the findings from in October, at least 45 cemeteries had been destroyed since 2014\u201430 of which were razed since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the sites were transformed into parks or parking lots, while others had remained empty lots, AFP said. Reporters said they had seen human remains left at several sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Before and after images of the Sultanim Cemetery in Hotan city.
Credit: RFA\/Google Earth<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Targeting the dead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service, Thum said that by razing cemeteries, China\u2019s ruling Communist Party is \u201cliterally targeting Uyghurs who have already died,\u201d in addition to the estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities authorities are believed to have been detained in the XUAR\u2019s vast network of internment camps since April 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said that destroying graveyards is also part of a bid to control the wider Uyghur population, which views the sites as \u201ca part of the historical landscape of the Uyghur region,\u201d regardless of their religious significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a long time, [Chinese authorities] have been nervous about the shrines\u2014particularly those shrines where large numbers of people gather\u2014and so a lot of the most important shrines were already closed but were not being destroyed or damaged,\u201d Thum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what\u2019s really different here, is that they\u2019re now\u2014in several places\u2014completely removing and destroying these mazars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thum suggested that actions such as destroying graveyards are tactics authorities use to \u201celiminate Uyghur culture or to transform it into something that is more like Han Chinese people\u2019s culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of these shrines are just a collection of flags in the desert, and yet, by people going there frequently and engaging in the memorialization of the person who is supposed to be buried there, they keep them up, and they keep the memory alive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut also, these physical markers on the landscape help remind Uyghurs of their own traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reported by Kurban Niyaz for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2020-05-01https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/cemetery-05012020134504.html?fbclid=IwAR1X3qQGnu0byX9d0DnWFuPnOvDT0wEOJ5EAvhQAqIHdFWwOLaJ0UAv_aM0 A cemetery considered sacred by Uyghurs that was razed by authorities last year in northwest China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has been paved … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,4],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ethnic-cleansing-crime-against-humanity-genocide","tag-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}