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China Tries To Discredit Female Uighur Witnesses By Releasing Private Sexual Health Data

BEIJING (Reuters) — China, under growing global pressure over its treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in far west Xinjiang, is mounting an unprecedented and aggressive campaign to push back, including explicit attacks on women who have made claims of abuse.

As allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang mount, with a growing number of Western lawmakers accusing China of genocide, Beijing is focusing on discrediting the female Uighur witnesses behind recent reports of abuse.

Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.

“To rebuke some media’s disgusting acts, we have taken a series of measures,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy head of Xinjiang’s publicity department, told a December news conference that was part of China’s pushback campaign. It includes hours-long briefings, with footage of Xinjiang residents and family members reading monologues.

A Reuters review of dozens of hours of presentations from recent months and hundreds of pages of literature, as well as interviews with experts, shows a meticulous and wide-reaching campaign that hints at China’s fears that it is losing control of the Xinjiang narrative.

“One reason that the Communist Party is so concerned about these testimonies from women is because it undermines their initial premise for what they’re doing there, which is anti-terrorism,” said James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University and expert in Xinjiang policy.

“The fact that there are so many women in the camps … who don’t have the faintest appearance of being violent people, this just shows how this has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Uighurs make up most of the million people that a U.N. estimate says have been detained in Xinjiang camps under what the central government calls a campaign against terrorism. Accusations by activists and some Western politicians include torture, forced labour and sterilisations.

GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

This photo taken on May 31, 2019, shows a woman in a Uighur graveyard on the outskirts of Hotan in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

In rare U.S. bipartisan agreement, the top diplomats of the former administration of Donald Trump and the new one of Joe Biden have called China’s treatment of the Uighurs genocide, a stance adopted last week by the Canadian and Dutch parliaments.

China faces sanctions such as a ban on U.S purchases of Xinjiang cotton and tomatoes, and calls by some Western lawmakers to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday declined to answer questions on the specific information released about the women but said “some anti-China forces ignore facts and truth and wantonly fabricate all kinds of Xinjiang-related lies. People of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including Xinjiang women, live and work in peace and contentment.”

Beijing has rejected calls for an independent U.N. investigation into Xinjiang’s internment programme. Journalists and diplomats have not been permitted access to the camps outside of tightly controlled government tours. Uighurs in Xinjiang have told Reuters they fear reprisals for speaking to the press while in China.

‘LIES AND SLANDER’

China’s tightly controlled, invitation-only media events on Xinjiang require journalists to submit questions days or weeks in advance. They include pre-recorded videos and prepared testimony by former camp inmates and religious figures.

Beijing has packaged content from the events in two volumes titled, “The Truth About Xinjiang: Exposing the US-Led Lies and Slanders About Xinjiang”.

In January, the Twitter account of China’s U.S. embassy was suspended for a tweet that said Uighur women had been “baby-making machines” before Beijing instituted its system of camps.

“The biological, the reproductive, the gendered aspect of this is particularly horrifying to the world,” said Georgetown’s Millward. China “seems to have recognised that… You now see them trying in this clumsy way to respond.”

During a regular daily press briefing last week, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin held up images of witnesses who had described sexual abuse in Xinjiang. The account of one of them, he said, was “lies and rumours” because she had not recounted the experience in previous interviews. He gave medical details about the woman’s fertility.

Xinjiang officials in January said a woman who had spoken to foreign media had syphilis, and they showed images of medical records – unsolicited information that was not directly related to her account.

A Xinjiang government official said of another witness last month: “Everyone knows about her inferior character. She’s lazy and likes comfort, her private life is chaotic, her neighbours say that she committed adultery while in China.”

Last week, the top spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, tweeted images of four named witnesses, saying they had “raked their brains for lies”, adding “they will never succeed”.

China has declined to provide data on the number of people in the camps. Beijing initially denied the camps existed but now says they are vocational and education centres and that all the people have “graduated”.

(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by William Mallard and Nick Macfie)

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New Post has been published on https://hollywood.newonline.help/2021/03/01/china-tries-to-discredit-female-uighur-witnesses-by-releasing-private-sexual-health-data/

China Tries To Discredit Female Uighur Witnesses By Releasing Private Sexual Health Data

BEIJING (Reuters) — China, under growing global pressure over its treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in far west Xinjiang, is mounting an unprecedented and aggressive campaign to push back, including explicit attacks on women who have made claims of abuse.

As allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang mount, with a growing number of Western lawmakers accusing China of genocide, Beijing is focusing on discrediting the female Uighur witnesses behind recent reports of abuse.

Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.

“To rebuke some media’s disgusting acts, we have taken a series of measures,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy head of Xinjiang’s publicity department, told a December news conference that was part of China’s pushback campaign. It includes hours-long briefings, with footage of Xinjiang residents and family members reading monologues.

A Reuters review of dozens of hours of presentations from recent months and hundreds of pages of literature, as well as interviews with experts, shows a meticulous and wide-reaching campaign that hints at China’s fears that it is losing control of the Xinjiang narrative.

“One reason that the Communist Party is so concerned about these testimonies from women is because it undermines their initial premise for what they’re doing there, which is anti-terrorism,” said James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University and expert in Xinjiang policy.

“The fact that there are so many women in the camps … who don’t have the faintest appearance of being violent people, this just shows how this has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Uighurs make up most of the million people that a U.N. estimate says have been detained in Xinjiang camps under what the central government calls a campaign against terrorism. Accusations by activists and some Western politicians include torture, forced labour and sterilisations.

GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

This photo taken on May 31, 2019, shows a woman in a Uighur graveyard on the outskirts of Hotan in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

In rare U.S. bipartisan agreement, the top diplomats of the former administration of Donald Trump and the new one of Joe Biden have called China’s treatment of the Uighurs genocide, a stance adopted last week by the Canadian and Dutch parliaments.

China faces sanctions such as a ban on U.S purchases of Xinjiang cotton and tomatoes, and calls by some Western lawmakers to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday declined to answer questions on the specific information released about the women but said “some anti-China forces ignore facts and truth and wantonly fabricate all kinds of Xinjiang-related lies. People of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including Xinjiang women, live and work in peace and contentment.”

Beijing has rejected calls for an independent U.N. investigation into Xinjiang’s internment programme. Journalists and diplomats have not been permitted access to the camps outside of tightly controlled government tours. Uighurs in Xinjiang have told Reuters they fear reprisals for speaking to the press while in China.

‘LIES AND SLANDER’

China’s tightly controlled, invitation-only media events on Xinjiang require journalists to submit questions days or weeks in advance. They include pre-recorded videos and prepared testimony by former camp inmates and religious figures.

Beijing has packaged content from the events in two volumes titled, “The Truth About Xinjiang: Exposing the US-Led Lies and Slanders About Xinjiang”.

In January, the Twitter account of China’s U.S. embassy was suspended for a tweet that said Uighur women had been “baby-making machines” before Beijing instituted its system of camps.

“The biological, the reproductive, the gendered aspect of this is particularly horrifying to the world,” said Georgetown’s Millward. China “seems to have recognised that… You now see them trying in this clumsy way to respond.”

During a regular daily press briefing last week, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin held up images of witnesses who had described sexual abuse in Xinjiang. The account of one of them, he said, was “lies and rumours” because she had not recounted the experience in previous interviews. He gave medical details about the woman’s fertility.

Xinjiang officials in January said a woman who had spoken to foreign media had syphilis, and they showed images of medical records – unsolicited information that was not directly related to her account.

A Xinjiang government official said of another witness last month: “Everyone knows about her inferior character. She’s lazy and likes comfort, her private life is chaotic, her neighbours say that she committed adultery while in China.”

Last week, the top spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, tweeted images of four named witnesses, saying they had “raked their brains for lies”, adding “they will never succeed”.

China has declined to provide data on the number of people in the camps. Beijing initially denied the camps existed but now says they are vocational and education centres and that all the people have “graduated”.

(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by William Mallard and Nick Macfie)

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New Post has been published on https://viralwizard.newonline.help/2021/03/01/china-tries-to-discredit-female-uighur-witnesses-by-releasing-private-sexual-health-data/

China Tries To Discredit Female Uighur Witnesses By Releasing Private Sexual Health Data

BEIJING (Reuters) — China, under growing global pressure over its treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in far west Xinjiang, is mounting an unprecedented and aggressive campaign to push back, including explicit attacks on women who have made claims of abuse.

As allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang mount, with a growing number of Western lawmakers accusing China of genocide, Beijing is focusing on discrediting the female Uighur witnesses behind recent reports of abuse.

Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.

“To rebuke some media’s disgusting acts, we have taken a series of measures,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy head of Xinjiang’s publicity department, told a December news conference that was part of China’s pushback campaign. It includes hours-long briefings, with footage of Xinjiang residents and family members reading monologues.

A Reuters review of dozens of hours of presentations from recent months and hundreds of pages of literature, as well as interviews with experts, shows a meticulous and wide-reaching campaign that hints at China’s fears that it is losing control of the Xinjiang narrative.

“One reason that the Communist Party is so concerned about these testimonies from women is because it undermines their initial premise for what they’re doing there, which is anti-terrorism,” said James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University and expert in Xinjiang policy.

“The fact that there are so many women in the camps … who don’t have the faintest appearance of being violent people, this just shows how this has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Uighurs make up most of the million people that a U.N. estimate says have been detained in Xinjiang camps under what the central government calls a campaign against terrorism. Accusations by activists and some Western politicians include torture, forced labour and sterilisations.

GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

This photo taken on May 31, 2019, shows a woman in a Uighur graveyard on the outskirts of Hotan in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

In rare U.S. bipartisan agreement, the top diplomats of the former administration of Donald Trump and the new one of Joe Biden have called China’s treatment of the Uighurs genocide, a stance adopted last week by the Canadian and Dutch parliaments.

China faces sanctions such as a ban on U.S purchases of Xinjiang cotton and tomatoes, and calls by some Western lawmakers to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday declined to answer questions on the specific information released about the women but said “some anti-China forces ignore facts and truth and wantonly fabricate all kinds of Xinjiang-related lies. People of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including Xinjiang women, live and work in peace and contentment.”

Beijing has rejected calls for an independent U.N. investigation into Xinjiang’s internment programme. Journalists and diplomats have not been permitted access to the camps outside of tightly controlled government tours. Uighurs in Xinjiang have told Reuters they fear reprisals for speaking to the press while in China.

‘LIES AND SLANDER’

China’s tightly controlled, invitation-only media events on Xinjiang require journalists to submit questions days or weeks in advance. They include pre-recorded videos and prepared testimony by former camp inmates and religious figures.

Beijing has packaged content from the events in two volumes titled, “The Truth About Xinjiang: Exposing the US-Led Lies and Slanders About Xinjiang”.

In January, the Twitter account of China’s U.S. embassy was suspended for a tweet that said Uighur women had been “baby-making machines” before Beijing instituted its system of camps.

“The biological, the reproductive, the gendered aspect of this is particularly horrifying to the world,” said Georgetown’s Millward. China “seems to have recognised that… You now see them trying in this clumsy way to respond.”

During a regular daily press briefing last week, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin held up images of witnesses who had described sexual abuse in Xinjiang. The account of one of them, he said, was “lies and rumours” because she had not recounted the experience in previous interviews. He gave medical details about the woman’s fertility.

Xinjiang officials in January said a woman who had spoken to foreign media had syphilis, and they showed images of medical records – unsolicited information that was not directly related to her account.

A Xinjiang government official said of another witness last month: “Everyone knows about her inferior character. She’s lazy and likes comfort, her private life is chaotic, her neighbours say that she committed adultery while in China.”

Last week, the top spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, tweeted images of four named witnesses, saying they had “raked their brains for lies”, adding “they will never succeed”.

China has declined to provide data on the number of people in the camps. Beijing initially denied the camps existed but now says they are vocational and education centres and that all the people have “graduated”.

(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by William Mallard and Nick Macfie)

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When did the guitar come to China? Western missionaries may have brought lutes, vihuelas and other guitar-like instruments to parts of China already by the 16th century, but their memoirs mention only the keyboard instruments and bowed string ensembles. There's a record in the Vatican archives that papal legates to the Kangxi emperor brought two guitars by the maker Pietro Franchi to Beijing in 1720.

It was probably only in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century that the guitar began to be known more widely in China's coastal cities. By the 1920s and 1930s, the instrument was all the rage in Shanghai andHong Kong, cosmopolitan cities with broad western and Asian connections. Famous stars appeared with guitars in movies made in Shanghai's film studios. Models posed with Western stringed instruments. Ling Long, a magazine for sophisticated "modern girls," ran several portraits in the mid-1930s of fashionably dressed young ladies playing or holding guitars, ukuleles or mandolins. In one, a woman with bobbed hair and a qipao dress with modish diagonal stripes mimes playing guitar in a garden. The caption reads, "Miss Xu, in this tranquil place, play a song for us!" In another, a girl labeled "healthy and beautiful" lounges in a bathing suit, cradling a ukulele in her lap. In a third, a girl in revealing tank top and short shorts lies on her back, one knee raised, her loose hair provocatively splayed on the courtyard floor behind her. "Only she," the caption sighs, "can fully express such natural beauty." The head of a mandolin rests against her breast while her slender fingers toy with the tuning pegs.

These western stringed instruments made it possible (in a manner to which Chinese instruments are less suited) for young Chinese to accompany themselves singing popular songs of the day, and to do so in parks and other outdoor settings (as the piano does not). But clearly these instruments meant more than that. The guitar in China in this era was associated with youth and freedom--as in many other places. But in China it bore an added sense of sophistication and cosmopolitanism, because the guitar was--and would remain for decades--classed as a foreign instrument.