Washington DC [US], February 22 : On International Mother Language Day, observed annually on February 21 and proclaimed by UNESCO, conversations around linguistic diversity have taken on renewed urgency as concerns mount over education policies affecting Uyghur students in East Turkistan.
In a video shared on X, residents of East Turkistan, including a student, stated that they are increasingly being placed in Mandarin-only schooling systems, where instruction in their mother tongue has been significantly reduced or removed altogether. These measures amount to the systematic sidelining of the Uyghur language within formal education.
https://x.com/UyghurCongress/status/2025167692374720586
A mother tongue often serves as the primary vehicle for transmitting culture, history, and collective memory. For many communities worldwide, learning in one's native language is considered fundamental to identity and belonging, the student stated.
According to Genocide Watch, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pursuing a systematic campaign to assimilate Uyghurs, replacing their culture, language, and religious traditions with Han Chinese culture and communist ideology. Uyghur social and political institutions are being dismantled and replaced with CCP-controlled structures, eroding the community's identity and autonomy.
The article said that since the 1990s, millions of Han Chinese have been resettled in Xinjiang under the "Big Development of the Northwest Plan," intensifying demographic and cultural pressures on the Uyghur population. The CCP has detained hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uyghurs in so-called "reeducation" centres, while Han Chinese monitors are forcibly placed in Uyghur homes to suppress dissent. According to Genocide Watch, Officials justify these measures as "counterterrorism" efforts, but evidence shows they target Uyghurs as an ethnic and religious group.
As reported by Genocide Watch, the repression has deep historical roots. In 1997, the banning of Uyghur traditional celebrations led to protests that were violently suppressed, resulting in over 200 deaths and mass arrests. In 2009, ethnic clashes in Urumqi further escalated tensions, leaving at least 200 dead.
Today, Xinjiang is one of the most heavily surveilled regions in the world. Uyghurs are monitored through AI-driven systems, biometric data collection, and pervasive "convenience police stations" that control movement and enforce CCP policies. The article further said that since 2017, an estimated 800,000 to 2 million Uyghurs have been detained in mass detention facilities, where they face forced political indoctrination, physical abuse, sexual violence, and systematic cultural erasure. The Uyghur language is banned in these centres, and detainees are coerced into abandoning Islam. Many mosques have been destroyed, further restricting religious practice and freedom.
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