
China changed the name of the village of Uighur Muslims
Last Updated on June 20, 2024 9:40 am
China has changed the names of more than 3,500 villages in China’s Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province, bordering Kazakhstan. About 1 crore Uighurs live there.
A report by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged that this initiative was taken to erase the traces of Uyghur or Muslim culture.
An organization in Norway has been working with Uyghur Muslims for a long time. Human Rights Watch published a report together with them. It is said that the Chinese administration has changed the names of 3,600 villages in Xinjiang province to promote their communist ideals.
Between 2009 and 2023, the two organizations conducted research on the names of 25,000 villages registered in the National Statistics Department. There they found that 3,600 villages had been renamed.
Allegedly, about 630 of these villages are directly owned by Uighur Muslims. Their village names were associated with words related to Uyghur or Muslim culture. Those words have been dropped and renamed.
Some examples are also given in the report. The word Dutar was associated with the names of some villages. Which means Uighur musical instrument. Or the word shrine was associated with some name. Words like unity, harmony, joy have been replaced instead. Such words are used by Chinese rulers in various places. Experts say that these words are connected with the communist regime.
This is not the end, Sufi words like hoja, hanika or baksi have also been changed. Uighur history prior to 1949 has been abolished.
It has been alleged that many more villages in the Xinjiang region have been renamed in this way. It is also believed to contain villages of several other tribes.
The report alleges that it is mainly aimed at destroying the heritage. The report claims that they tried to contact the Chinese administration in this regard, but they did not want to comment on it.
About one million Uighur Muslims live on the China-Kazakhstan border. There have been accusations of torture against them for a long time. Western world has warned China about this. But it is believed that the situation has not changed much so far.
Source: Reuters, AP