As you may have already heard, there was a protest today by Uighurs in Xinjiang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (mainland China), which left at least 156 people dead, more than 800 injured and at least 1,434 detained, according to several news reports (Al Jazeera; Voice of America; CNN). For background information, you can refer to this article and watch this video:



You can also see a deep and intense photojournalistic report on Uighurs under Chinese occupation here.

For wiqaable, I asked my Queer Uighur friend Meza to write a testimony because I wanted to hear his perspective and spread his words since my information and knowledge about this conflict is very limited. He's an activist, a health educator, a performer, and a (would-be) social worker in Toronto. So here you go:

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I'm a gay man who was born in Urumuqi, Xinjiang, China. I just heard the news about this protest, and I thought I needed to write something. I don't know what I should say about this protest because I have always been limited to say, write, read, or learn information about activism in our region. I think the only thing I can do is sharing my experience and some of my thoughts.

I think it's good to introduce myself first. I was born in China as an Uighur which is one of Chinese muslim minorities. I moved to Japan when I was 9, and I have Japanese passport right now, so I'm no longer under the Chinese government. I've been in Toronto since last year, and my English is still not good enough, so please be kind with my grammar.

I was born in Urumuqi in 1985, and I felt many difficulties to live as a minority in China even though I was a kid. Many Chinese kids treated me differently because of my ethnicity and how I looked. There were 2 kinds of school that I could go in Urumuqi, and which were Chinese language school and Uighur language school. If I went to Uighur language school, I would never get a job in China, so my family decided to put me into Chinese language school. I felt like I was losing my culture and language. In fact, I can only speak Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and English, but not Uighur.

Chinese government started reconstructing our city when I was leaving Urumuqi, and it had been changed so much when I went back in 2004. The city became such a rich city, but I didn't see a lot of Uighurs eating at expensive restaurants or shopping at brand stores. Everyone you see there is Chinese, not Chinese muslim minorities. Also, many of my family couldn't find jobs even though they were highly educated and experienced.

After 9/11, Chinese government changed ways to treat us. They became more strict about activism and unionism. I think they were scared of protest like 9/11. Last year, there were huge protests in Tibet, and Uighur community was influenced by the protest, so there were many conflicts between the Uighur community and Chinese government. There has been many protests around the world as well.

When I was in University, I was going to write a graduate thesis about conflicts between Uighur community and Chinese government. However, my mother was really angry about it because she knew it would become risk to us and our family in China. There was an Uighur activist in Japan who was writing a lot of articles about political issues around Uighur community in China, but he was caught by Chinese government many years ago. He was my father's friend, and I ended up changing the topic for my graduate thesis.

Right now, some of my family are visiting Urumuqi from Toronto. Also, the protest was happened at the place very close to our home in Urumuqi. When I saw the news, I was really shocked because the building in the picture is next to our home. I called my uncle, and he said that my family was going to go shopping when he called them, and it was just before the protest happened. We are trying to call them, but call and internet are all shut down, so there are no way that I can know if my family is fine.

I'm very angry about this situation, and I'm reading all articles about the protest. I have never done any activism about this issue, but maybe it's about time to start. For now, I can only wait to see if my family is fine. This is all I can say right now.

Meza
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