TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Authorities in China’s western Xinjiang region have systematically replaced the names of villages inhabited by Uighurs and other ethnic minorities to reflect the ruling Communist Party’s ideology as part of an attack on their identity. cultural, a report released by Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
Some 630 villages in Xinjiang have had their names changed to remove references to Islam or the culture and history of the Uyghurs, according to the group’s report, done in collaboration with the Norway-based organization Uyghur Hjelp.
The report compared the names of 25,000 Xinjiang villages listed by China’s National Bureau of Statistics between 2009 and 2023.
Words like “dutar,” a traditional Uyghur stringed instrument, or “mazar,” a shrine, were removed from village names and replaced with words like “happiness,” “unity,” and “harmony” – generic terms often found in documents Communist Party politicians.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the report and its policies in Xinjiang.
Xinjiang is a vast region bordering Kazakhstan and home to around 11 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. In 2017, the Chinese government launched an assimilation campaign that included mass arrests, alleged political indoctrination, alleged family separations It is alleged forced labor among other methods.
As part of the crackdown, more than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities are estimated to be detained in extralegal internment camps. The Chinese government at the time described the camps as ” professional training centers ” and said they were necessary to contain separatism and religious extremism.
The UN Human Rights Office in 2022 found allegations of rights violations in Xinjiang “credible” and said China may have committed crimes against humanity in the region.
Changes to the names of Xinjiang villages included the removal of mentions of religion, including terms such as “hoja”, a title for a Sufi religious teacher, and “haniqa”, a type of Sufi religious building, or terms such as “baxshi”, a shaman.
References to Uighur history or regional leaders prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 were also removed, according to the report.
“Chinese authorities have changed hundreds of village names in Xinjiang, from those rich in meaning for the Uighurs, to those that reflect government propaganda,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch. “These name changes appear to be part of the Chinese government’s efforts to erase Uyghur cultural and religious expressions.”
The Chinese government wants to “erase people’s historical memory, because these names remind people of who they are,” said Abduweli Ayup, a Norway-based Uyghur linguist and founder of Uyghur Hjelp.
Most of the village name changes occurred between 2017 and 2019, at the height of the government crackdown in Xinjiang, according to the report.
