Radio Free Asia reported on 30th of December 2013 about a horrific story of China’s authorities forcing four Uyghur women in the region of Xinjiang, a Muslim populated province to abort their babies for violating the one-child policy implemented in China since the 1970s. One of the women was nine months into her pregnancy. They were injected with unspecified abortion-inducing drugs to induce miscarriage.
Memettursun Kawul, the depressed husband of the 9-months-pregnant woman who was forced to undergo the abortion told that his wife delivered their baby boy alive but he died an hour later. He said, “‘although my wife was injected by doctors, my son was still crying when he was born.” When he heard the cries of his son, he stormed into the delivery room, grabbed the baby and took him to a nearby hospital in a bid to save him. The doctors in the hospital tried to save him but failed, due to the abortion drug that had already been injected. My son died an hour after he was born.” Metkurban Nuri, the husband of another Uyghur woman who was four months into her pregnancy, said he and his wife had been hiding in Hotan city for a week but local family planning officials located them on Saturday, then he was detained at Arish police station for 24 hours and forced to agree to allow his wife to undergo an abortion at the Nurluq Hospital.
Truly this is a savage and barbaric act committed by the immoral criminal Chinese regime! The regime which is blinded by its hatred towards Islam and its greed for economic growth has aborted many sons and daughters of Islam from the noble wombs of Uyghur’s women. On behalf of the controversial one-child policy, China has made history for forcing 336 million abortions and 196 million sterilizations since 1971, and continues to reap endless insults and controversy both domestically and internationally. Its peak happened in November when a Plenary Meeting of the Communist Party announced policy reforms to ease the one-child policy that has been implemented for decades. Finally now, based on the new rules, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on December 28 officially approved that couples who are both only childs can have two children. Policy makers have predicted that the easing would benefit around 15 to 20 million couples in China’s major cities and will result in 1-2 million additional births per year in the first few years, with over 16 million babies born every year in China.
But apparently this easing policy does not apply to Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, East Turkistan. The province is home to around ten million mostly Uyghur Muslims which is a small fraction of the Han ethnic Chinese population. Many observers say the Uyghur Muslims should not be subjected to the one-child policy because their numbers do not threaten economic growth in China. As an ethnic minority, the Uyghurs are supposed to be exempt from the population-limiting policy. However, despite this, Uighurs who live in cities are only allowed to have a maximum of two children, while if they live in rural areas, a maximum of three children is allowed. If they exceed this limit, they are forced to have an abortion or sterilization, or are subject to other actions that can dismiss the pregnancy. The US-based Women’s Rights without frontiers organization that monitors forced abortion and gendercide in China stated that “In reality, they (the Uyghurs) are subject to strict population control.” It is therefore not surprising that over the years, the population growth of Uyghur Muslim has remained low.
Truly the Chinese criminal regime has committed a “double crime” against Uyghur Muslims in East Turkestan – firstly by implementing brutal and heinous population control policies, and secondly by continuing to combat Islam and Muslims in Xinjiang.
THE CRIME OF ONE CHILD POLICY
Due to their greed for economic growth, China has undervalued the existence of their own children as the future generation and seen them as burden and obstacle to their economic growth. Millions of babies, especially baby girls, were aborted in various towns and villages in China. Hundreds of millions of women have been oppressed for nearly half a century by this cruel policy. The irony of this policy is that it is implemented merely for economic reasons, which is to prevent the population explosion in order to boost economic growth.
In fact the very same reason – namely the need for economic growth has also triggered the easing of the one-child policy that was newly introduced last December. The greedy Chinese regime realized the high cost they have to pay as a result of curbing their population for decades. China now faces a lack of productive labor to support their giant engines of economic growth. With an average annual GDP growth rate of 10.5 percent between 2001 and 2010 and 9.7 percent between 1979 and 2009, China emerged as the second largest economy, and the largest manufacturing and trading nation in the world. But these achievements have brought with them dangerously heavy fog and smoke and pollution of water and soil, which lead into respiratory diseases and cancer, as well as depriving the rights of more than 300 million people to safe drinking water. Indeed there is a high cost to pay for such a narrow one-track-vision for economic growth; China loses not only its productive age youth, but also healthy children.
Undoubtedly, China has been blinded by the capitalist ideology that sees all problems from an economic perspective and ignores the social impact of its policies on the lives of generations and society as a whole. Capitalism carries the mistaken belief that existing resources are insufficient to provide the basic needs of all people because Capitalism is the ideology that has consistently put profits over people and finance over humanity as well as economic growth over the millions of lives of the next generation.
THE HATRED AGAINST ISLAM
It is no secret that the Chinese government considers the existence of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province as a threat, employing the cynical umbrella of battling extremism to justify its violent, oppressive and discriminative policies against the minority. According to the Xinjiang Daily Newspaper, last October, the authority claimed that the battle against religious extremism cannot be avoided because it is an obstacle to security and stability in China. China continues to propagate the rhetoric against Uyghur Muslims who they called terrorists and extremists.
Indeed, these hostile actions against Muslims in East Turkistan which is occupied by China does not only reflect their hatred towards the Islamic laws and values, but their fear that the ideology of Islam will influence communities in China – a state that today does not have a clear ideological direction due to the erosion of communism within the country. On the other hand, the aggressive stance of the Chinese government towards Islam demonstrates that remnants of the repressive communist doctrine and values that have a legacy of persecuting religious minorities still remain firmly rooted within the state. Although the ideology of communism in the world has collapsed, Uyghur women continue to face intense pressure from all directions. Not only is their right to wear Islamic dress systematically deprived by the tyrant, but also their right to define the size of their family and have children! The ruling party has sought periodically to stamp out the Islamic dress since taking power in 1949, first launching an atheism drive and then banning the headscarf altogether in the 1960′s and 70′s.
Hence, Uyghur Muslim women not only have to deal with repressive policies that threaten their Islamic identity by campaigns against their Islamic dress, but are also confronted by the brutal policies that destroy their noble wombs by immoral and massive abortion and sterilization programs! These are programs which emanate from the brutal criminal rulers of China through their hate for Islam and fear of the birth of the next bright generation of Mujaheed and Mujtaheed of Islam who will be able InshaAllah to restore the glory of Islam in East Turkestan and all over the Muslim world. For from the noble wombs of Uyghur women and Muslim women around the world will be born the future generation of Muslim leaders who will bring the Ummah from the darkness into the light.
This is one of heart-wrenching realities from which Muslim women in the far east of the Muslim world are suffering. They are helpless victims of predator Kufr rulers who have been allowed by the existing world system to target Muslims. They have also been neglected by the puppet Muslim rulers who are the colonial remnants of the Western capitalist countries- those who have aborted their sense of humanity and become adulators of the secular and capitalist world system. As long as the world system remains as it is today, the plight of Uyghur women in East Turkistan undoubtedly will never end, because the base problem of all this suffering is nothing but the absence of the Khilafah as the shield for the Ummah – a state which would eliminate Kufr hegemony over the Muslims and protect the honor of Muslim women and children throughout the Muslim world.
THE KHILAFAH IS THE TRUE SHIELD FOR UYGHUR WOMEN
Muslim narrated from Al-Araj from Abu Hurayrah from the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that he صلى الله عليه وسلم said:
«إِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ»
“Indeed the Imam (Khalifah) is a shield from behind whom (one) would fight and one would protect oneself”
The Uyghur women desperately need their true shield that will protect both their honor and their families. The Khilafah is a state with a lofty view regarding women’s honor, where the protection of the honor of one woman equaled the value of the conquest of a whole city – the Roman city of Ammuriah – in the eyes of the Caliph al Mu’tasim! Caliph al Mu’tasim responded to the call from a Muslim woman who was harassed by the Roman army, by mobilizing tens of thousands of soldiers stretching from the gates of the capital of the Khilafah in Baghdad all the way to Ammuriah to liberate the Muslim woman from her oppressors and bring the city under the folds of Islam…
Furthermore, the Khilafah rejects the theory and policy of population control. It also rejects the capitalist materialistic view of limiting family size for economic interests that oppresses women by suppressing their natural instinct to bear children. This is due to the Islamic solution that always solves problems from the viewpoint of what is best for humanity rather than from the narrow economic perspective that defines capitalist solutions. Islam recommends having many children without the fear of poverty because its texts emphasize that provision in origin is from Allah سبحانه وتعالى, and that He سبحانه وتعالى is the Sustainer and the Provider who has created enough resources in the world for every human being to sustain themselves. This unique Islamic belief nurtures a mentality within a Muslim that views having many children as a blessing to a family and to society rather than a burden to their finances. Allah سبحانه وتعالى said in
أَلَمْ تَرَوْا أَنَّ اللَّهَ سَخَّرَ لَكُمْ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَأَسْبَغَ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعَمَهُ ظَاهِرَةً وَبَاطِنَةً
“Do you not see how Allah has made subjected for you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, and He has completed and perfected His favours upon you, both the open and the hidden.”
(Luqman 31:20)
O our dear Uyghur sisters! Be patient with the pressure and oppression from the tyrant Chinese regime! The dawn of the Khilafah is very near and we are one Ummah, we belong to one Deen, our Prophet is one, our Qur’an is one, our flag is one, and our struggle is one. It is the Khilafah state alone that will enable you to live by all the Commands of Allah swt and having a prosperous harmonious family life with many children and at the same time also has a time-tested approach in creating brilliant generations of leaders who are able to take Islam to the world and bring the Ummah out from the darkness into the light InshaAllah!
وَعَدَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مِنكُمۡ وَعَمِلُواْ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ لَيَسۡتَخۡلِفَنَّهُمۡ فِى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ ڪَمَا ٱسۡتَخۡلَفَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِهِمۡ وَلَيُمَكِّنَنَّ لَهُمۡ دِينَہُمُ ٱلَّذِى ٱرۡتَضَىٰ لَهُمۡ وَلَيُبَدِّلَنَّہُم مِّنۢ بَعۡدِ خَوۡفِهِمۡ أَمۡنً۬اۚ يَعۡبُدُونَنِى لَا يُشۡرِكُونَ بِى شَيۡـًٔ۬اۚ وَمَن ڪَفَرَ بَعۡدَ ذَٲلِكَ فَأُوْلَـٰٓٮِٕكَ هُمُ ٱلۡفَـٰسِقُونَ
“Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever disbelieves after that – then those are the defiantly disobedient.”
(An-Nur 55)
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fika Komara
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir