Uighur (Uyghur) Muslims are among the oldest Turkic-speaking people mostly residing in the northwestern part of China, in Xinjiang. The main Uighur populated cities are Kashgar, Silk Road, and Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

When China re-established control after crushing the short-lived state of East Turkestan, a large population of Han Chinese (the majority ethnic Chinese) migrated to Xinjiang. This move caused a lot of economic disparities and ethnic tensions grew as the Uyghurs were mistreated and discriminated against.

A 2009 protest in Urumqi turned violent, killing 200 and injuring about 800 people. Violence increased soon after including knife-attacks, suicide-bombers, and bomb blasts. Most of these attacks were pinned to Uighur Muslims and they were tied to overseas Muslim terrorist groups.

China identifies itself as a “socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.” The current political leadership has been termed a “consultative democracy,” “people’s democratic dictatorship” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics” by its leaders.

In recent years, with the disclosure of the mistreatment of Uighur Muslims, China has been criticized for a lot more trouble. The UN and other Human Rights activists have been trying to help protect the oppressed.

Uighur Muslims have been subjected to many constraints. Those who’ve fled the country have many stories of torture to speak. Those who’ve returned have been separated and punished.

A New York Times article wrote about Abdurahman Tohti, who left Xinjiang and immigrated to Turkey in 2013. “When his wife and two young children returned to China for a visit a few years ago, they disappeared. He heard that his wife was sent to prison, like many Uighurs who have traveled abroad and returned to China. His parents were detained too. The fate of his children, though, was a mystery. He spotted his 4-year-old son, years later, in a video on Chinese social media that had apparently been recorded by a teacher. The boy seemed to be at a state-run boarding school and was speaking Chinese, a language his family did not use. Mr. Tohti, 30, said he was excited to see the child, and relieved he was safe — but also gripped by desperation. “What I fear the most,” he said, “is that the Chinese government is teaching him to hate his parents and Uighur culture.””

Many countries including but not limited to Saudi Arabia, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan have written to the UN in support of the way China is handling the terrorizing groups, the Uyghurs. The letter these countries signed and sent included, “Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers.” They attested to not finding any Human Rights violations in the “training centers” and added that since the people have been institutionalized, there hasn’t been even a single terror attack. Going as further as saying that the people “now enjoyed a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment, and security.”

The Uighur activists have stated otherwise for decades, maintaining that the discrimination has persisted long before the “terror” attacks started. They have stood by their innocence in their involvement in the attacks and have also denied all ties to overseas terror organizations.

Below, is the timeline of a few (not all) key protests, attacks, and other decisions made with respect to the Uighur Muslims.

These are incidents that have been publicized internationally. It is quite possible that much more has been kept under wraps.

2003 

• 21^st December – Uighur “terrorists” demand freedom of expression and internet access
  • A Muslim separatist group branded as “terrorists” by China has said it was willing to disband if the communist state offered freedom of expression and internet access to Uighur Muslim minorities.

2009

• July – Urumqi Han Chinese vs Uighurs Riots kill 200 and injure 1700
  • Several hundred were arrested and students were shot at by the police
  • More than 260 vehicles and 200 shops and houses were attacked and damaged.
  • “False” news of claiming 6 boys raping two innocent girls made the rounds prior to the riots and as a response internet and messaging services were shut off.

2010

• June – Gheyret Niyaz, an Uighur journalist sentenced for 15 years
  • Gheyret Niyaz was sentenced for 15 years for speaking to a foreign-journalists during the 2009 Urumqi riots.
• 30^th July – 3 Uighurs jailed for website work
  • Uyghur American Association (UAA) said that 3 men were sentenced to 10, 5, and 3 years respectively.
  • Officials have not confirmed the charges despite already sentencing them.
  • Their main offense is to found and manage an Uyghur-language website.

2011

• 18^th July – – A knife and bomb attacks in Hotan
  • Suspected to be Uighur terroritsts
• 30^th – 31^st July – A series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar

• 15^th September – China sentences 4 to death over Xinjiang attacks
  • The four Uighur men were found guilty of murder, arson, and running a terrorist organization.
  • Accused to incidents in Kashgar and Hotan in July.

2012

• 2^nd August – China jails 20 Uighurs for terrorism and separatism
  • Charges against the accused include making explosive devices, promoting religious extremism and plotting “holy war”

2013

• October – 3 Uighur men sentenced over a fatal car crash in Tiananmen Square, Beijing
• December – 16 people killed in a riot in a village. Another 8 were killed later near Yarkland county.

2014

• 27^th January – 12 dead in Xinjiang violence caused by “terrorists”
  • Xinhua news agency described the incident as “organised, premeditated terrorist attacks”. But the report gave no reason why the hair salon and the market were targeted.
• February – Chinese authorities have shot dead eight people trying to attack police officers in Xinjiang,
• 1^st March – mass knife attack at the Kunming train station.
• 30^th April – knife and bomb attach at Urumqi’s central train station
• 22^nd May – suicide-attack on an open-air market in Urumqi’s predominantly Han-populated Shayibake district killed 31 people and 94 injured.
  • Officials blame Uighur Muslims
  • Claim these “terrorists are swollen with arrogance.”
• 27^th May – Chinese Police arrest Xinjiang “terror gang”
• 21^st June – Police kill 13 assailants of the Xinjiang attackers
  • Linking them to the October 2013 attacks, where 3 men were already sentenced.
• 30^th June – China jails 113 Uighurs for terrorism
• 2^nd July – China bans Uighurs Muslims from fasting for Ramadan.
  • Not the first time.
• 5^th July – Chinese Uighurs defy Ramadan fasting bans
• 11^th July – Muslim students forced to eat during Ramadan
• 31^st July – Imam of China’s largest mosque killed in Xinjiang
  • Jume Tahir, 74, was reportedly stabbed after he led the early morning prayers at the Id Kah mosque.
  • Reason of the death remains unclear
  • A hasty burial was performed the same afternoon
  • Police sealed off roads and cut internet and text messaging links.
• 3^rd August – China claims Xinjiang “gangs” killed 37
  • 59 of the 215 attackers were killed by security forces.
• 12^th October – Kashgar attack killed 22.
• 18^th November – Shache attack in which 15 were killed, including 11 attackers.
• 11^th December – Xinjiang Officials hold debated to ban veils for Muslim women.
• 8^th December – 6 people linked to the May 2014 market attack sentenced to death

2015

• 27^th May – Chinese authorities claim having busted 181 terror groups in a yearlong operation.
• 14^th July – 3 “Xinjiang Terrorists” shot dead by police
  • A woman was also injured
  • Police found “terrorist” suspects shouting Anti-China slogans
  • Police also detained 28-year old Uighur woman, and 3 children.
• China police checkpoint attack kills 18 in Xinjiang
  • China refused to comment
  • Hospitals informed that many police officers here hurt
  • Local radio reported that the attackers used knives and bombs while speeding through the checkpoint.

2016

• 7^th June – police ordered residents to provide DNA samples and other biological data to apply for travel documents
• 19^th October – Notice was issued, warning citizens
  • Those who failed to turn in their passports risk being barred from leaving the country.
• 20^th October – China confiscates passports of Xinjiang People
  • Apparently aimed to combat terrorism.
  • Hand in their travel documents to the police for “safekeeping”
  • All residents must not apply for permission to leave the country before they can retrieve their passports

2017

• 15^th February – Eight assailants dead in a knife attack after killing 5 and injuring 10.
• 1^st April – no beards, no veils
  • Only older men are allowed to have beards
  • Women are not allowed veils as part of the “project: Beauty”

2018

• 10^th August – China mosque demolition issue in Ningxia
  • Hundreds of Muslims in north-western China are engaged in a standoff with authorities to prevent their mosque from being demolished.
  • On 3^rd August a notice was posted outside the mosque that it would be forcibly demolished
  • Reason: it had not been granted the necessary planning and construction permits.
  • Many asked why the construction hadn’t been halted during the 2 years of construction
• 31^st August – UN alarmed by reports of China’s mass detention.
  • UN criticized the “broad definition of terrorism and vague references to extremism and unclear definition of separatism in Chinese legislation”
  • The UN committee called on Beijing to:
    • End the practice of detention without lawful charge, trial and conviction;
    • Immediately release individuals currently detained under these circumstances;
    • Provide the number of people held as well as the grounds for their detention;
    • Conduct “impartial investigations into all allegations of racial, ethnic and ethno-religious profiling”.
• 10^th October – China Uighurs: Xinjiang legalises ‘re-education’ camps

2019

• February – Uighurs kids and youth ask china to show them that their parents are still live in the detention camps
• 2^nd May – Chinese police monitor Xinjiang Citizens using an app
• 24^th October – Jailed Uighur academic Ilham Tohti wins Sakharov Prize
  • The Sakharov Prize for free speech is awarded by the EU Parliament annually in memory of Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
• 28^th November – Uighur activists claim China is running hundreds of more camps than it claims
• 23^rd December – Hong Kong protesters rally in support of Uighurs
• 23^rd December – TESCO finds a Christmas card with a cry for help message from the Uighur makers in China
• 28^th December – In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children have not been Spared.
  • Children of parents who have either been killed or detained are taken away from relatives and placed in state-run boarding schools.
  • These schools are designed to “assimilate and indoctrinate children at an early age, away from the influence of their families.”
  • These schools are tightly guarded and are off-limits
  • Media and official documents cover this up by claiming “education is a key component of President Xi Jinping’s campaign to wipe out extremists’ violence in Xinjiang.”
  • Many Xinjiang activists have described these schools as “incubators of a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to both the party and the nation.

2020

• 15^th January – Leaked reports reveal China’s human rights violations against Uighurs
• 27^th February – UN demands unfettered access to China’s Uighur region
• 3^rd March – Uighurs forced to work in Chinese factories for meagre pay
• 29^th June – reports surfaced that China forced birth control on Uighurs to supress population.
  • Chinese scholar, Adrian Zenz’s report prompted multiple international called for the United Nations to investigate
  • Mr. Zenz’s report was based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents, and interviews with ethnic minority women in Xinjiang. It alleges that Uighur women and other ethnic minorities are being threatened with internment in the camps for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceed birth quotas.
  • Women with fewer than 2 children were forced to get fitted with an IUD
  • China denies allegations and calls them baseless.
  • Uighur growth rates fall 84% since 2015.
• 13^th August – China denies detaining 1 million Uighurs
  • Uighurs enjoyed full rights but “those deceived by religious extremism… shall be assisted by resettlement and re-education”, officials said.