this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I'm not very informed on modern China and there's a ton of sources accusing China of killing and even harvesting organs from Uyghurs and Falun Gong believers.

Is there any truth to those claims or is it all pigpoop ?

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[–] CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Another whole angle of this I was thinking about the other day - you actually CANNOT just genocide a group of people without them responding in some way. People can tell when the atmosphere of the state they're living in is turning towards genocide against them (and a culture preparing for a genocide to the point of ordinary citizens accepting it generates a HUGE amount of propaganda, which there is obviously no evidence of in China). Before WW2 there were millions of Jewish refugees, and during it there were Jewish militias and partizans fighting back. Colonized countries rose up again and again to throw out the colonists who were exploiting and killing them. And now Israel is showing exactly what happens in the modern day if you try to annihilate an entire population: absolutely intractable guerilla warfare. Israel would love to just send in the army and gun down all 2 million people in Gaza, but they CAN'T because their army would be torn to shreds.

So to suggest the people of Xinjiang - which shares hundreds of miles of desert-mountain borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan - would just meekly accept a million people (literally 1/20th of the population!) disappearing without fighting back using the enormous amount of weaponry and guerilla warfare expertise within a trivial distance of them, or even just trying to escape with their lives, is outright infantilizing. WW2 shows they would fight back, the history of decolonial movements shows they would fight back, Gaza shows they would fight back, and the total lack of such a violent conflict in Xinjiang shows that whatever is happening there is not a genocide.

[–] volcel_olive_oil@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

(not a historian)

in pretty much every case, sources for the "uyghur genocide" trace back to zenz Adrian Zenz, a guy who can't read chinese who deliberately makes shit up to support his "holy crusade against china"

the thing that actually happened is that China had to fight CIA-funded terrorism in Xinjiang; they did so with prison sentences and re-education instead of ultraviolence - it worked, so they stopped doing it (much to the dismay of china watchers)

Falun Gong is banned because they are a death cult

[–] Rod_Blagojevic@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can dig into the details, but you don't need to. The holocaust has tons of physical evidence. It takes a lot of stuff to commit a genocide. For this genocide there isn't even a photo. Also, the politician most invested in the genocide accusations was Joe Biden. His only response was to cancel a diplomatic delegation going to the olympics in China. The delegation wasn't even real. These aren't the actions of someone who actually thought there was a genocide happening.

[–] iByteABit@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

biden-troll

proceeds to arm and provide military support for a genocide by the zionists

[–] SocialistWombat@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Falun Gong is the Chinese equivalent of Scientology. Shen Yun, the dance show, and the Epoch Times are both arms of the church.

It's absolutely in their interests to make up anything smearing a government that doesn't tolerate their shit.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagining a world where the West had the balls to ban Scientology and other cults wholesome

[–] allnaturalanthrax@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

If you were to list the top ten cults in the United States by harm done, Scientology wouldn’t make the top ten. It would mostly be Protestant churches who will do another Waco if forced which honestly isn’t something anyone should want.

Scientology is bad, but they have one thing going for it that most cults don’t. Sexual abuse is not common, like obviously it happens but probably to a lesser extent than the Church. Scientology is much more focused on exploiting the labor of its practitioners and covering up the occasional death caused by lack of medical care than getting horny. Like legitimately the reason why Scientology still exists is that it is not a sex cult.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

China does not harvest organs from Falun Gong weirdos. I have been counselling Chairman Xi to change his mind on this to no avail.

Read the UN report on Xinjiang. It's the closest thing you're ever going to get to an "unbaised" report. When Wahhabi paramilitaries began trying to expand in to Xinjiang and convert local Muslims to Wahhabi beliefs, with the violence and disruption Wahhabi beliefs entail, China responded with a bunch of different counter-terrorism programs. Some were overtly military, some were intelligence based, some were aimed at making Xinjiang more resilient in the face of subversion attempts. The programs that got spun in the west at genocide involved surveillance, some restrictions on movement, arbitrary arrest and detention of some Uighur Muslims for as much as 3-4 months, and related activities. These are certainly violations of human rights as conceived by the west, but are not genocide by any definition and frankly aren't much different from the day to day behavior of western security forces. Interviews in the un report describe being held in prison facilities for several months while undergoing questioning, some cultural and religious education programs intended to instill Uighur cultural identity and Chinese national identity, while also showing how Wahhabism contradicts many islamic principles and brings violence and instability. Also apparently a lot of being forced to sing patriotic songs, which, really?

Was it nice? No, arbitrarily arresting people is not nice. However it needs to be positioned within the context of the global war on terror and the enormous amount of bloodshed the west and it's allies unleashed "fighting terrorism". At any rate, it seems to have worked - wahhabi violence in Xinjiang has dropped off and afaik the Chinese counter-terror program was wrapped up several years ago, and was already wrapping up when the UN investigation was being conducted.

Seriously, read the UN report. It's very much critical of china and it's critique of what china was really doing shows how absurd and bad faith the accusations of genocide were.

[–] impiri@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for pointing me toward the UN report. It's fairly long (as it should be), but they helpfully provide a summary of their findings:

The Summary143. Serious human rights violations have been committed in XUAR in the context of the Government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” strategies. The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.

  1. These human rights violations, as documented in this assessment, flow from a domestic “anti-terrorism law system” that is deeply problematic from the perspective of international human rights norms and standards. It contains vague, broad and open-ended concepts that leave wide discretion to officials to interpret and apply broad investigative, preventive and coercive powers, in a context of limited safeguards and scant independent oversight. This framework, which is vulnerable to discriminatory application, has in practice led to the large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities in XUAR in so-called VETC and other facilities, at least between 2017 and 2019. Even if the VETC system has since been reduced in scope or wound up, as the Government has claimed, the laws and policies that underpin it remain in place. There appears to be a parallel trend of an increased number and length of imprisonments occurring through criminal justice processes, suggesting that the focus of deprivation of liberty has shifted towards imprisonment, on purported grounds of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism”.

  2. The treatment of persons held in the system of so-called VETC facilities is of equal concern. Allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence. While the available information at this stage does not allow OHCHR to draw firm conclusions regarding the exact extent of such abuses, it is clear that the highly securitised and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities, coupled with limited access to effective remedies or oversight by the authorities, provide fertile ground for such violations to take place on a broad scale.

  3. The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse in VETC and other detention facilities come against the backdrop of broader discrimination against members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities based on perceived security threats emanating from individual members of these groups. This has included far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international norms and standards. These have included undue restrictions on religious identity and expression, as well as the rights to privacy and movement. There are serious indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive and discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies. Similarly, there are indications that labour and employment schemes for purported purposes of poverty alleviation and prevention of “extremism”, including those linked to the VETC system, may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds.

  4. The described policies and practices in XUAR have transcended borders, separating families and severing human contacts, while causing particular suffering to affected Uyghur, Kazakh and other predominantly Muslim minority families, exacerbated by patterns of intimidations and threats against members of the diaspora community speaking publicly about experiences in XUAR.

  5. The information currently available to OHCHR on implementation of the Government’s stated drive against terrorism and “extremism” in XUAR in the period 2017- 2019 and potentially thereafter, also raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law. The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.

  6. The Government holds the primary duty to ensure that all laws and policies are brought into compliance with international human rights law and to promptly investigate any allegations of human rights violations, to ensure accountability for perpetrators and to provide redress to victims. Individuals who are arbitrarily deprived of their liberty should be immediately released. As the conditions remain in place for serious violations to continue and recur, these must also be addressed promptly and effectively. The human rights situation in XUAR also requires urgent attention by the Government, the United Nations intergovernmental bodies and human rights system, as well as the international community more broadly.

  7. OHCHR is grateful to the Government and other institutions for sharing with it information about aspects of the situation in XUAR. This assessment was also facilitated by the vast amount of research that has been completed by non-governmental organizations, researchers, journalists and academics over the last years (and independently assessed by OHCHR). OHCHR is deeply grateful to the victims and witnesses who were willing to share their experiences with OHCHR, despite the potential risks to themselves and their loved ones.

It's... not great! Taken at face value, it's full of human rights violations! And also nothing resembling genocide.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I think that's part of what makes it hard to talk about. There were human rights violations, including some very strange ones. So when you throw it at the average lib and say "This isn't genocide!" they'll often shift the goal posts to arbitrary arrest and detentions without disclosure of where the detained person is being held, never pausing to consider that while that's bad, it's not at all what they asserted initially.

[–] Huldra@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty much, the organ harvesting claim in particular originally was based in the falun gong belief that(Disclaimer: This is not a bit) their spiritual practices literally made their internal organs superior in quality and impervious to disease or physical ailments(This leads into their belief that modern medicine is unnecessary and a satanic communist tool) and therefore the Communist Party harvests those organs to make their party elite live longer.

This was later transplanted basically wholesale into the idea of "halal organs", the claim that there are muslim elites who refuse to receive organs from anyone who has not adhered to halal requirements in their lifestyle, and therefore the Communist Party are systematically harvesting organs from the Uighur muslim population to sell on the black market, presumably to the muslim nations that stand with China.

There has as far as I have read never been any evidence to support either claim that isnt either a claim of personal experience or a "whistleblower" statement that also is exclusively a personal claim of experience, unless China also is running a whole black market supply system of immunosuppressants and other post-transplant support medical care, you would see very obvious signs such as consumption of those medical supplies being obviously higher than recorded transplants.

The only signs like that that has been pointed to is that China has a notably short waiting list for organ transplants from what I have heard, but thats basically where the supporting evidence begins and ends, no further investigation has borne fruit.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

specifically they believe that communism is a satanic plot by ghosts to make people believe in climate change and therefore gay

[–] RenownedBalloonThief@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

"Atheism and evolution are deadly ideas. Modern trends destroy what makes us human." - quote from a Shen Yun performance. I'm half tempted to go to one just to snap a pic of the giant Karl Marx head tsunami wave.

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

specifically they believe that communism is a satanic plot by ghosts

When you don't understand what a metaphor is and you read "a specter is haunting Europe".

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

yes that was the exact reasoning

how they got to it's to make you an envirnonmentalist which will make you gay I still don't understand

[–] echognomics@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wait that makes communism sound cool and metal as fuck.

Part of me kinda wish we lived in the fantasy world these people say they believe in, where instead of reading theory and attending party meetings, communists are actually mighty wizard-shamans who gain esoteric mystical powers through constantly doing gay orgiastic rituals, and then use it to summon spirits of the ancestral dead in order to perform crazy magical feats like making entire nation-spanning train networks appear out of mid-air or transmuting arid deserts into dense forests.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

mantra of my life: I want to live in the world chuds think we live in