On a government sponsored tour, officials took us to meet Mamatjan Ahat, a truck driver, who declared he was back to drinking and smoking because he had recanted religion and extremism after a stint at one of Xinjiang’s infamous “training centers”.

“It made me more open-minded,” Ahat told reporters, as officials listened in.

It's really difficult debating you because it seems you're just wilfully ignoring shit.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What shit am I ignoring, be specific. Are you trying to claim that freedom from religious extremism is a negative for people of Xinjiang?

[+] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're trying to claim that China forcing people into dropping their religion and then parading them to people on a government guided tour is somehow a good thing.

If this really is a benevolent thing, how about some transparency in what's happening to these people?

If you have a government guided tour, you should be noting what you're not seeing and don't trust what you do see.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

China isn't doing anything of the sort. What they're doing is fighting religious extremism, the sort of which no western country would ever tolerate. It's interesting how the same people who purport to support human rights are pretty comfortable with theocracy when it suits their geopolitical interests.

Here's an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang which makes it pretty clear that religious people are a target just like everyone else https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html

Here's another interview with Imams https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/on-eid-xinjiang-imams-defend-china-against-u-s-criticism-1.5425967

A Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on "atrocities" are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/

Western reports on Xinjiang don't support the lurid narrative you're pushing either

Representatives of Arab majority nations actually wrote a letter to the UN in support of China https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3853509?ln=en

The reality is that US has been funding and arming extremists in Xinjiang trying to replicate Afghanistan model when they toppled a socialist government there. Don't take my word for it though, here's George Bush's chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here's an excerpt:

Throughout the 1990s, hundreds of Uyghurs were transported to Afghanistan by the CIA for training in guerilla warfare by the mujahideen. When they returned to Xinjiang, they formed the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and came under Catli's expert direction. Graham Fuller, CIA superspy, offered this explanation for radicalizing the Chinese Muslims:

The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them [Muslims] against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan and against the Red Army. The doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter Chinese influence in Central Asia.

US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they've been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west.

And of course, before US started weaponizing terrorists they themselves were fighting these people https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/

[–] Awoo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you should be noting what you’re not seeing

Lmao so basically there is absolutely no way to make you change your mind because you will invent whatever you want. If you don't see it, you will just assume it exists and is hidden from you?

This is a wild way to behave. You live in a world that is entirely invented and evidence-free. Any evidence to the contrary is just dismissed as a clever act for the sake of deceiving you.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, I look at the evidence provided, speculate about what's missing, and then ask why it's missing.

For example, in some of the videos I've seen of N. Korea, there's a certain level of hospitality, but no other customers aside from the visitors. Visitors aren't allowed to go out on their own. There are wide streets with few cars. And so on. So what is N. Korea hiding?

What I'm looking for are answers to questions like:

what exactly is happening to the Uigurs? Is it consensual? How can I verify?
are people allowed to disagree publicly with the government? Why or why not? How can I independently verify?

And so on. I'm not going to just blindly accept anything any government states, I want independently verifiable information.

[–] Awoo@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

No, I look at the evidence provided, speculate about what’s missing, and then ask why it’s missing.

But that's the problem. You're just speculating.

If I visit america and then speculate that everything I'm seeing is actually fake and made up by an entire country of fucking actors purely for the benefit of pretending america is something it's not you would call me utterly deranged.

Is it the best place in the world to live? Fuck no it's not. Its been embargoed and the subject of economic warfare for decades, not to mention the literal genocide of one fifth of its population that the US performed. Its behaviour towards the US should not at all be surprising given this history, they never want to see it happen again. Imagine if 1 in 5 of every person you know was firebombed and 99% of the buildings in your country were razed to the ground and then some white anglo fucks on the internet just make up shit about you over and over and over again.

what exactly is happening to the Uigurs? Is it consensual? How can I verify?

Now? Fuck all is happening this ended like 2 fucking years ago and liberals are still going on about it. What did happen? A very serious crackdown and education program that involved mandatory schools where people deemed "at risk" (of becoming islamic extremists) were forced into a 5 day per week (they went home on weekends) education program.

Shit was very serious, terrorism was a real and major problem, bombings were happening once or twice a month and shit was seriously ramping up. This was being imported over the border with Afghanistan. This all stopped after the program.

They were then shut down. The US then proceeded to get out of afghanistan, as it no longer had any reason to be there. Here is a video of Col Lawrence Wilkerson saying that the cia were planning to do just that., keep in mind this man was Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State at the time of this video, which predates the explosion of uighur content online. Prior to the US suddenly having such an interesting in the rights of Uighurs it is also notable that the US was literally bombing them.

are people allowed to disagree publicly with the government? Why or why not? How can I independently verify?

Sure. Average people do all the time just look it up on Weibo. You could also just look up the culture of protest in the country (extremely frequent, activism is high, just not activism to literally overthrow the country). Gov does not give a shit about whether the average person disagrees with the government on various issues unless you happen to be a celebrity or millionaire/billionaire. The government cracks down extremely hard on the bourgeoisie and its representatives.

If you're looking for more realistic ways to interpret the DPRK then I think you should look at things like food security figures, improvements in agriculture, or for living standards look at things like the smartphone market and percentage of ownership. 50% or more of the country owns a smartphone, 6-8 million have subscriptions to services. This kind of figure will give you something closer to an idea of what reality is without the mess of propaganda from all sides. It's the kind of figure you can relate more closely to yourself, and to where western countries were 10-15 years ago. Here in the UK for example 2003-2005 we had roughly 50% smartphone ownership in the country.