{"id":195411,"date":"2016-07-20T18:14:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T01:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=195411"},"modified":"2021-09-14T20:25:17","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T03:25:17","slug":"100-chinese-muslims-joined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2016\/07\/100-chinese-muslims-joined\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Claims More Than 100 Uyghurs Have Joined ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"
Chinese authorities have long claimed that the Islamic State is actively recruiting Muslim Uyghurs from the country’s northwestern Xinjiang region.\u00a0In December 2014, Global Times\u00a0reported that 300 Chinese Uyghurs were fighting alongside the Islamic State<\/a> in Iraq and Syria. Although it remains difficult to verify exactly how many Uyghurs have left China to join the terrorist organization, a\u00a0new report released by a U.S. think tank on Wednesday suggests that more than 100 Chinese Uyghurs have done so between 2013 and 2014<\/a><\/strong>, many motivated by a desire to find “a sense of belonging.”<\/p>\n A July 20 report from New America, a think tank in Washington, DC, examined more than 4,000 registration records of fighters who joined the Islamic State between mid-2013 and mid-2014. These rudimentary questionnaires asked basic questions of each fighter, including origin, travel history, level of education, former employment, and previous jihad experience. Analysis of the records revealed that at least 114 Chinese Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim Turkic-speaking ethnic group concentrated in the northwestern Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, entered Islamic State territory during that time period. Nate Rosenblatt, the author of the report and an independent Middle East\/North Africa researcher, obtained the data from contacts made during his previous research in Syria.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0The Uighurs in the sample were entirely new to jihad.<\/span> When asked if they had any previous experience with jihad, 110 of the Uighurs replied that they had not; the other four left the question blank. Seventy percent of respondents indicated they had never left China before embarking for the Islamic State. Rosenblatt said this suggests the fighters are not part of \u201ctraditional Islamic separatist movements that have existed in China for some time,\u201d such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur separatist organization that China and the United States have labeled a terrorist organization. […]<\/p>\n The lack of previous experience with jihad and the implied lack of contact with ETIM suggests that \u201cit may not be that these fighters are as religiously motivated\u201d as some fighters with origins elsewhere, said Rosenblatt, but rather that the they are looking \u201cperhaps for a sense of belonging that they don\u2019t get in China.\u201d The Islamic State has targeted Uighurs with slick propaganda videos showcasing orderly classrooms full of children studying the Quran. \u201cThat is exactly what a lot of these fighters are looking for,\u201d said Rosenblatt. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A recent story from Invisibilia focusing on radicalization among Muslims living in Denmark<\/a> suggests\u00a0a search for acceptance may also be driving IS recruitment from elsewhere. AFP<\/a> has more<\/a><\/strong> on the characteristic of Islamic State recruits from Xinjiang:<\/p>\n Overall, recruits were more likely to come from \u201cregions with restive histories and tense local-federal relationships\u201d, the report said.<\/p>\n The nominally autonomous Chinese area offered IS rich recruitment potential due to \u201csignificant economic disparities between the ethnic majority Han Chinese and the local Uighur Muslim population\u201d and \u201csubstantial state repression\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0On average, the fighters from Xinjiang were less educated, less well travelled, and more likely to be married than others who sought to join IS. They also claimed only a low level of religious training.<\/p>\n The data included a number of registration forms for children, including one as young as 10, the paper said, and \u201cseveral of the forms for these children explicitly stated they joined ISIS with their families\u201d. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tough religious restrictions in Xinjiang may be a major factor driving Uyghurs to join the Islamic State. In recent years, authorities in Xinjiang have implemented a number of policies to curtail the observance of Islamic practices such as fasting<\/a>\u00a0during Ramadan,\u00a0wearing headscarves<\/a>, and\u00a0growing beards<\/a>. All of these restrictions have taken place while Beijing maintains\u00a0that Uyghurs in China enjoy \u201creligious freedom.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, hundreds have died in a series of deadly attacks in Xinjiang<\/a> and elsewhere in the country<\/a>\u00a0over the past several years. Authorities have consistently blamed the bloodshed on religious extremism<\/a> and radical Islamist militants with alleged\u00a0ties to the global jihad movement<\/a>.\u00a0The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur separatist organization, has been regularly accused of being behind the wave of unrest by Chinese authorities, and the organization has laid claim<\/a> to several attacks<\/a> in China in recent years. However, foreign experts and activists have disputed the validity of ETIM claims<\/a>, or questioned whether the organization is as organized as Beijing asserts. Reuters reports that the group has been recently added to Britain’s official list of terrorist organizations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Elsewhere,\u00a0James Palmer at Vox writes that the Chinese government nevertheless has political incentives to maintain peaceful relations with the country’s Muslim population<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The past decade has seen distrust of Muslims spread beyond Xinjiang to a much wider swath of China, as James Leibold, a political scientist and senior lecturer at Australia\u2019s La Trobe University, recently noted in a paper for the Jamestown Foundation.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0Yet China\u2019s Muslims are unlikely to face wide-scale persecution \u2014 at least from the government. Even as the authorities cracked down in Xinjiang over Ramadan, Leibold noted to me in an email that the central government had issued notices calling for officials to \u201crespect and uphold the cultural customs and legal rights of ethnic minorities\u201d and redoubled propaganda efforts (such as the white paper) to preach China\u2019s tolerance of religious freedom.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Beijing is doing this not out of concern for religious rights but for political ends. Beijing is currently pursuing an ambitious geopolitical plan known as the \u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d initiative. […]<\/p>\n […]\u00a0To make it happen, China needs the cooperation of a whole bunch of countries \u2014 including a substantial number of Muslim ones. This means the central government in Beijing has a pretty strong incentive to make sure it’s not perceived as persecuting Muslims all over China, as that would almost certainly infuriate many of its Islamic partner nations. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more about the\u00a0“One Belt, One Road” initiative<\/a>, or the varying degrees of religious freedom\u00a0enjoyed by Muslims of different ethnic groups<\/a> in China, via CDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chinese authorities have long claimed that the Islamic State is actively recruiting Muslim Uyghurs from the country’s northwestern Xinjiang region.\u00a0In December 2014, Global Times\u00a0reported that 300 Chinese Uyghurs were fighting alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Although it remains difficult to verify exactly how many Uyghurs have left China to join the terrorist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1088,"featured_media":195421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,14744,14745,14746,100,1051],"tags":[315,16847,3805,306,7112,15460,5921,7184],"class_list":["post-195411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-top-article","tag-islam","tag-islamic-state","tag-national-security","tag-terrorism","tag-turkestan-islamic-party","tag-uyghurs","tag-xinjiang","tag-xinjiang-violence","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n\n