WWAC talk highlights Chinese treatment of Muslim minorities

BRATTLEBORO — On Friday, May 10, the Windham World Affairs Council will present “The Uyghurs of Xinjiang: Perfecting the Surveillance State in China's Muslim Borderland.”

The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the parlor of Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St. There will be coffee, tea, and conversation starting at 7 p.m., and the talk will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session.

According to a news release, inspiration for this topic came from local residents with far-flung connections.

“Our talks on Rwanda, Iran, Haiti, Armenia, El Salvador, Cuba, and Chile were each proposed by people living locally who had ties to these countries,” they wrote. “This time, it was a family that had lived in China for many years and is greatly concerned about the current desperate situation of the Uyghur and other Turkic minorities in the Xinjiang region.”

WWAC said the family put them in touch with the speaker for this event, Professor Eric Schluessel of the University of Montana, who holds a Ph.D. in history and East Asian languages from Harvard University and has researched and written about Xinjiang's past and present for 15 years.

According to the WWAC, China “has built up a police state of unprecedented sophistication in Xinjiang, a vast region that is home to the Uyghur people. An estimated 1 million people have been disappeared, incarcerated, and forced into reeducation camps, while millions more are watched closely for thoughts and actions that might threaten the Communist Party's rule.”

Schluessel will presents the stories of some of the disappeared, including friends of his. He will show how parts of the Chinese government have used American Islamophobia and the “War on Terror” to justify and enact a new kind of totalitarianism. He will also show how international corporations have lent support to this project, and suggest what we can do to turn the tide.

For more about this event and WWAC activities, visit www.windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.

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