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ABSTRACT
In recent decades, Xinjiang’s municipal government has enacted a series of religious policies with the overt aim of combatting religious extremism, but which increasing numbers of Uyghur activists, scholars and human rights NGOs assert are discriminatory, serving as a vehicle for religious repression and the cultural assimilation of the region’s Uyghur and other Muslim minorities. Within this context, this paper will consider the applicability of international human rights law in protecting the Uyghurs’ cultural identity as a religious minority. However, any attempt to do so remains stymied as China has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the sole human rights treaty of the United Nations that contains a provision dedicated to freedom of religion or belief for all. By exploring the applicability of cultural rights as a protection of the Uyghurs’ religious identity, this paper will highlight how the UN’s evolving definition of culture ensures that Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides one of the broadest protections for minority rights within the core human rights instruments of the United Nations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 As of Xinjiang’s most recent population census in 2010, Xinjiang’s population is 21.81 million. See Statistical Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2010 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2010).
2 Ibid.
3 Ross Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination: A Case Study on the Applicability of ICERD with Respect to China’s Uyghur Muslim Minority’, Religion and Human Rights 14, no. 1 (2019): 1–30.
4 Elizabeth Van Wie Davis, ‘Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China’, Asian Affairs: An American Review 35, no. 1 (2008): 18; June Teufel Dreyer, ‘China’s Vulnerability to Minority Separatism’, Asian Affairs: An American Review 32, no. 2 (2001): 77–8.
5 ‘Secret Violence: Human Rights Violations in Xinjiang’, Amnesty International, October 1992, 1–15; ‘Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang’, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China, April 2005, 1–116.
6 Sean R. Roberts, ‘The Biopolitics of China’s “War on Terror” and the Exclusion of the Uyghurs’, Critical Asian Studies 50, no. 2 (2018): 232–58. doi:10.1080/14672715.2018.1454111.
7 Josh Chin, ‘The German Data Diver Who Exposed China’s Muslim Crackdown’, Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-german-data-diver-who-exposed-chinas-muslim-crackdown-11558431005.
8 Adrian Zenz, ‘“Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts”: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign’, Journal of Political Risk 7, no. 11 (2019). https://www.jpolrisk.com/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts/.
9 Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 3.
10 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 999 UNTS 171, entered into force March 23, 1976.
11 The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNTS vol. 1577, entered into force 20 November 1990, Articles 14, 30. The International Convention on Rights of the Child contains two provisions that specifically reference the right to ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’; The United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, UNTS vol. 2220, entered into force 1 July 2003, Article 12; The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), UNTS vol. 1249, entered into force 3 September 1981, Article 2. While CEDAW provides that discrimination may not occur on grounds of religion as part of its general non-discrimination provision, it does not significantly mention FoRB.
12 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), 993 UNTS 3, entered into force 3 January 1976. Ratified by China on 2 March 2001.
13 National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Constitution of the People’s Republic of China’, promulgated on 4 December 1982, amended on 11 March 2018.
14 Central Committee of the Communist Party in China, ‘Document No. 19: The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period’, issued on 31 March 1982.
15 Several scholars, including Fenggang Yang and Matthew S. Erie, have commented on the longstanding influence on Document 19 on the CCP’s religious policy. See Matthew S. Erie, China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 79; Fenggang Yang, ‘The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China’, The Sociological Quarterly 47 (2006): 101.
16 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China of 1982, Article 36.
17 Ibid.
18 Hong Qu, ‘Religious Policy in the People’s Republic of China: An Alternative Perspective’, Journal of Contemporary China 20, no. 70 (2011): 442.
19 Pitman B. Potter, ‘Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China’, The China Quarterly 5, no. 19 (2003): 317–37.
20 For further reading on the challenges of constitutionality in the People’s Republic of China, see Mo Jihong, ‘The Constitutional Law of The People’s Republic of China And Its Development’, Columbia Journal of Asian Law 23, no. 1 (2009): 137–84; Qianfan Zhang, ‘A Constitution without Constitutionalism? The Paths of Constitutional Development in China’, International Journal of Constitutional Law 8, no. 4 (2010): 950–76; Stephanie Balme and Michael W. Dowdle, eds., Building Constitutionalism in China (New York City, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
21 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Preamble.
22 Chang, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles: Sinicisation and State Regulation of Religion in China’, 38; Weihsuan Lin, ‘Religion as an Object of State Power: The People’s Republic of China and Its Domestic Religious Geopolitics after 1978’, Political Geography 67, no. 55 (2018): 4; Carl Hollan, ‘A Broken System: Failures of the Religious Regulatory System in the People’s Republic of China’, Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 3 (2015): 754.
23 Mu Xuequan, ‘China Focus: CPC Issues Decision on Deepening Reform of Party and State Institutions’, Xinhua News Agency, March 4, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180304205655/http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/05/c_137015953.htm.
24 ‘Xi Jinping: Comprehensively Improve the Level of Religious Work in the New Situation’, Xinhua News Agency, April 23, 2016, http://web.archive.org/web/20190205191023/http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-04/23/c_1118716540.htm. For further discussion on the Sinicization of religion campaign, see Benoît Vermander, ‘Sinicizing Religions, Sinicizing Religious Studies’, Religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 23.
25 Susette Cooke, ‘“Religious Work”: Governing Religion in Reform-Era China’, in China’s Governmentalities: Governing Change, Changing Government, ed. Elaine Jeffreys (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2009), 144.
26 Eric R. Carlson and Chan Kim-Kwong, Religious Freedom in China: Policy, Administration and Regulation - A Research Handbook (Santa Barbara, CA: Institute for the Study of American Religion, 2005), 7.
27 There is at least one PRA for each of the five religions, with two for each of the Christian faiths: the Buddhist Association of China, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (Catholicism), the Chinese Daoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the China Christian Council (Protestantism) and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (Protestantism).
28 Yang, ‘The Red, Black, And Gray Markets of Religion In China’, 101; Hollan, ‘A Broken System: Failures of the Religious Regulatory System in the People’s Republic of China’, 760.
29 ‘Chinese Muslims Go Abroad to Register Online for Queuing (Trial)’, Islamic Association of China, May 25, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20130405001226/, http://www.chinaislam.net.cn/cms/zjsw/zzfw/bmbf/201205/25-706.html.
30 Zhao Jianmin, Religion and Law in China (Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands: Wolters Kluwer, 2014), 28; Potter, ‘Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China’, 325; Keui-Min Chang, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles: Sinicisation and State Regulation of Religion in China’, China Perspectives, no. 1/2 (2018): 42.
31 National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China’, promulgated on March 15, 2000, amended on 15 March 2015, Article 56.
32 State Council of the People’s Republic of China, ‘2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs’, promulgated on 1 February 2018.
33 Ibid., Article 6.
34 Ibid., Article 22.
35 Ibid., Article 42.
36 Ibid., Article 16.
37 Ibid., Articles 69, 71, 73.
38 Shucheng Wang, ‘Tripartite Freedom of Religion in China: An Illiberal Perspective’, Human Rights Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2017): 709–802.
39 David A. Palmer, ‘China’s Religious Danwei: Institutionalising Religion in the People’s Republic’, China Perspectives, no. 4 (2009): 29. Palmer notes that authorities have provided limited accommodations to unregistered religions providing that “they are not classified as ‘evil cults’ or as challenging the CCP’s authority or the territorial integrity of the PRC”.
40 For an overview of the Falun Gong movement’s rise and eventual persecution as an ‘evil cult’, see Carl Minzner, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival Is Undermining Its Rise (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018), 121–6.
41 As referenced within Article 36 of the constitution, the threat of foreign interference has been a long-standing concern of the CCP. This concern is also articulated within Article 5 of the national RRA which states that “All religions shall adhere to the principle of independence and self-governance; religious groups, religious schools, and religious activity sites and religious affairs, are not to be controlled by foreign forces”.
42 For example, restrictions include a circular published by the Buddhist Association of China prohibiting pictures of the Dalai Lama, see Robert Barnett, ‘Restrictions and Their Anomalies: The Third Forum and the Regulation of Religion in Tibet’, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41 (2012): 64. For a broader discussion of the range of religious policies implemented in Tibet in recent years, see Enze Han and Christopher Paik, ‘Dynamics of Political Resistance in Tibet: Religious Repression and Controversies of Demographic Change’, The China Quarterly 217 (2014): 69–98.
43 With the other four regions being the Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Tibet Autonomous Region.
44 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 4(3); National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Regional National Autonomy Law of the People’s Republic of China (RNAL)’, promulgated on 31 May 1984, amended on 28 February 2001, Preface and Article 2.
45 Barry Sautman, ‘Scaling Back Minority Rights?: The Debate about China’s Ethnic Policies’, Stanford Journal of International Law 46, no. 1 (2010): 58; Thomas S. Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2010), 26–7.
46 Xiaohui Wu, ‘From Assimilation to Autonomy: Realizing Ethnic Minority Rights in China’s National Autonomous Regions’, Chinese Journal of International Law 13, no. 1 (2014): 62–4; Guobin Zhu and Yu Lingyun, ‘Regional Minority Autonomy in the PRC: A Preliminary Appraisal from a Historical Perspective’, International Journal of Minority and Group Rights 7, no. 1 (2000): 48.
47 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 116; RNAL, Article 19.
48 Koen Wellens, ‘Negotiable Rights? China’s Ethnic Minorities and the Right to Freedom of Religion’, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 16, no. 3 (September 1, 2009): 444.
49 Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, ‘Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Regulations on Religious Affairs 2015’, 1 January 2015. Archived source: https://web.archive.org/web/20181121154126/, http://news.ts.cn/content/2014-12/04/content_10789678_all.htm, Articles 21 and 40(c).
50 Joanne Smith Finley, ‘The Wang Lixiong Prophecy: “Palestinization” in Xinjiang and the Consequences of Chinese State Securitization of Religion’, Central Asian Survey 38, no. 1 (2019): 95–6. doi:10.1080/02634937.2018.1534802. Finley argues that such perceptions have resulted in the indiscriminate securitization of the Uyghur population, further inflaming inter-ethnic tensions.
51 Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 3–4.
52 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Regulations on Religious Affairs 2015, Articles 24–30.
53 Ibid., Article 37. For a more detailed discussion, see Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 5.
54 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Regulations on Religious Affairs 2015, Article 40.
55 Jia Cui, ‘Curbs on Religious Extremism Beefed up in Xinjiang’, China Daily, November 29, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20150311084443/, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-11/29/content_18996900.htm.
56 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s Regulations on Religious Affairs 2015, Article 38.
57 Rachel Harris, ‘Bulldozing Mosques: The Latest Tactic in China’s War against Uighur Culture’, The Guardian, April 7, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/07/bulldozing-mosques-china-war-uighur-culture-xinjiang; ‘Chinese Government Demolishes Mosques in Xinjiang’, Bitter Winter, June 20, 2018, https://bitterwinter.org/chinese-government-demolishes-mosques-in-xinjiang/; Lily Kuo, ‘Revealed: New Evidence of China’s Mission to Raze the Mosques of Xinjiang’ The Guardian, May 7, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/07/revealed-new-evidence-of-chinas-mission-to-raze-the-mosques-of-xinjiang; Finley, ‘The Wang Lixiong Prophecy’, 95; Rémi Castets, ‘The Uyghurs in Xinjiang – The Malaise Grows’, China Perspectives 49 (2003): 17; Angel Ryono and Matthew Galway, ‘Xinjiang under China: Reflections on the Multiple Dimensions of the 2009 Urumqi Uprising’, Asian Ethnicity 16, no. 2 (2014): 236.
58 Megha Rajagopalan, ‘China Targets ‘Wild Imams’ in Mass Public Sentencing’, Reuters, November 11, 2014, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-idUSKCN0IV0H820141111; Qiao Long, ‘China Detains, Brainwashes “Wild” Imams Who Step Out of Line in Xinjiang’, Radio Free Asia, October 16, 2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/xinjiang-imams-10162017132810.html.
59 ‘Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Detailed Rules for Implementation of the “Registration and Queuing Regulations for Chinese Muslims Traveling Abroad on Hajj Pilgrimages (Provisional).”’, Chinese Law & Government 45, no. 4 (2012): 26–8. doi:10.2753/CLG0009-4609450404. The Xinjiang regulations on registration for the Hajj pilgrimage requires that applicants are between 50 and 70 years old, a far narrower range than the 18–75 age range contained within the national regulations. For further discussion on Xinjiang’s Hajj restrictions, see Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 7.
60 Ben Blanchard, ‘China Targets Parents in New Religion Rules for Xinjiang’, Reuters, October 12, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang/china-targets-parents-in-new-religion-rules-for-xinjiang-idUSKCN12C0A6; Shohret Hoshur, ‘Xinjiang Authorities Jail Uyghur Imam Who Took Son to Unsanctioned Religious School’, Radio Free Asia, May 10, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/imam-05102018155405.html.
61 Li Zaili, ‘Government Treats “Generalization of Halal” as Extremism’, Bitter Winter, August 13, 2019, https://bitterwinter.org/government-treats-generalization-of-halal-as-extremism/.
62 Shohret Hoshur, Mamatjan Juma, and Joshua Lipes, ‘Chinese Authorities Order Muslim Uyghur Shop Owners to Stock Alcohol, Cigarettes’, Radio Free Asia, May 4, 2015, http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/order-05042015133944.html.
63 Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 8.
64 Sophie Richardson, ‘China Bans Many Muslim Baby Names in Xinjiang’, Human Rights Watch, April 24, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/24/china-bans-many-muslim-baby-names-xinjiang; Xin Lin, ‘China Bans “Extreme” Islamic Baby Names Among Xinjiang’s Uyghurs’, Radio Free Asia, April 20, 2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/names-04202017093324.html. Examples of such names include ‘Islam’, ‘Medina’ and ‘Quran’.
65 Darren Byler, ‘Violent Paternalism: On the Banality of Uyghur Unfreedom’, The Asia-Pacific Journal 16, no. 24 (2018): 1–15.
66 Aurora Elizabeth Bewicke, ‘Silencing the Silk Road: China’s Language Policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’, San Diego International Law Journal 11, no. 1 (2009): 135–70; Arienne M. Dwyer, ‘The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy, and Political Discourse’, Policy Studies 15 (2005): 29–40.
67 For an in-depth discussion of Project Beauty and related regulations, see James Leibold and Timothy Grose, ‘Islamic Veiling in Xinjiang: The Political and Societal Struggle to Define Uyghur Female Adornment’, China Journal 76, no. 76 (2016): 78–102.
68 ‘Xinjiang Celebrates Women’s Beauty Project Anniversary’, All-China Women’s Federation, February 28, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20190412143120/, http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/news/action/13/8341-1.htm.
69 For further reading on such legislation, see Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 6.
70 Xinjiang People’s Congress Standing Committee, ‘Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-Extremification’, promulgated on March 29, 2017.
71 Ibid., Article 9(7).
72 Ibid., Article 9(8).
73 Ibid., Article 9(5).
74 Ibid., Article 9(13).
75 Roberts, ‘The Biopolitics of China’s “War on Terror” and the Exclusion of the Uyghurs’, 246.
76 Adrian Zenz, ‘“Thoroughly Reforming Them towards a Healthy Heart Attitude”: China’s Political Re-Education Campaign in Xinjiang’, Central Asian Survey 38, no. 1 (2019): 122–24; Zenz, ‘“Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts”’.
77 Katrin Kuntz, ‘An Inside Look at China’s Reeducation Camps’, Der Spiegel, November 13, 2018, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/an-inside-look-at-muslim-reeducation-camps-in-china-a-1238046.html.
78 John Sudworth, ‘China’s Hidden Camps: What’s Happened to the Vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang?’, BBC News, October 24, 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps.
79 Shohret Hoshur, ‘Young Uyghur Tour Director Dies Under Questioning by Xinjiang Authorities: Mother’, Radio Free Asia, June 24, 2019, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/death-06242019143149.html.
80 Rachel Harris, ‘Securitization and Mass Detentions in Xinjiang: How Uyghurs Became Quarantined from the Outside World’, Quartz, September 5, 2018, https://qz.com/1377394/securitization-and-mass-detentions-in-xinjiang-how-uyghurs-became-quarantined-from-the-outside-world/.
81 The first leaked cache of internal documents, referred to as the Xinjiang Papers, was published by the New York Times in November 2019. The documents provide important insights into regarding the timeline during which the re-education camp policy was developed, along with internal speeches made by Xi Jinping concerning security policy in Xinjiang. See Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, ‘“Absolutely No Mercy”: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims’, New York Times, November 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html; The second collection of documents, referred to as the China Cables, was published through an investigation carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists just days later. These leaked documents include extensive details surrounding the conditions in the detention facilities and the system of indoctrination that detainees are subjected to. See ‘China Cables’, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, November 24, 2019, https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/.
82 ‘Exclusive: Xinjiang Spokesperson Dismisses Western Reports’, Global Times, December 4, 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20191204164504/, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1172069.shtml.
83 For further discussion on CERD’s engagement with China on the existence of the Xinjiang re-education camps, see Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 22–30.
84 Ibid., 28; Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, ‘Decision to Amend the “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-Extremification”’, promulgated on 9 October 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20181010124647/, http://www.xjpcsc.gov.cn/1009/t4028e49c665347630166588b8cf40001001.html.
85 Donald Clarke, ‘More on the Legal Aspects of the Xinjiang Detentions’, The China Collection, June 27, 2019, https://thechinacollection.org/legal-aspects-xinjiang-detentions/.
86 There is growing evidence to suggest that restrictions on Uyghur and other Muslim minorities ordinarily limited to Xinjiang may now be occuring in regions containing concentrated popultions of the Hui Muslim minority. See Emily Feng, ‘“Afraid We Will Become The Next Xinjiang”: China’s Hui Muslims Face Crackdown’, NPR, September 26, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/763356996/afraid-we-will-become-the-next-xinjiang-chinas-hui-muslims-face-crackdown?t=1576610152405.
87 Uyghur organisations have played a prominent role in advocating for greater human rights in Xinjiang. Examples of such groups include the World Uyghur Congress, the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation, the Uyghur American Association, the East Turkestan Union in Europe, and the Belgium Uyghur Association.
88 See Ian Johnson’s series of interviews with prominent public intellectuals on their views of Ilham Tohti: Ian Johnson, ‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uighurs’, The New York Review of Books, September 22, 2014, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/09/22/trial-ilham-tohti-they-dont-want-moderate-uighurs/; Matthew Bell, ‘China’s Harsh Punishment for a Moderate Uighur Could Make Things Worse in Xinjiang’, PRI, September 23, 2014, https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-23/china-s-harsh-punishment-moderate-uighur-could-make-things-worse-xinjiang.
89 Ilham Tohti (translated by Cindy Carter), ‘Present-Day Ethnic Problems in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region: Overview and Recommendations’, China Change, May 19, 2014, http://web.archive.org/web/20190629123002/, https://chinachange.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ilham-tohti_present-day-ethnic-problems-in-xinjiang-uighur-autonomous-region-overview-and-recommendations_complete-translation3.pdf. 16.
90 Laura Zhou, ‘Life in Jail: Unusually Harsh Sentence for Uygur Scholar Ilham Tohti for Inciting Separatism’, South China Morning Post, September 23, 2014, https://www.scmp.com/article/1598567/ilham-toht-sentenced-life-prison-pushing-uygur-independence; Edward Wong, ‘China Sentences Uighur Scholar to Life’, New York Times, September 23, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/world/asia/china-court-sentences-uighur-scholar-to-life-in-separatism-case.html; G. E., ‘A Moderate Silenced: Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Sentenced’, The Economist, September 23, 2014, https://www.economist.com/analects/2014/09/23/a-moderate-silenced.
91 Other examples of prominent Uyghur human rights activists include Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, and Nury Turkel, former executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and former president of the Uyghur American Association.
92 Rebiya Kadeer, ‘Statement by Rebiya Kadeer for the US Congressional-Executive Commission’s Hearing on Religion with “Chinese Characteristics”: Persecution and Control in Xi Jinping’s China’, US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, July 23, 2015, https://www.cecc.gov/events/hearings/religion-with-“chinese-characteristics”-persecution-and-control-in-xi-jinping’s.
93 Xinjiang Victims Database, September 20, 2018, http://www.shahit.biz/.
94 See ICCPR, Articles 18, 27.
95 This is with the exception of the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions, both of which have distinct constitutional arrangements under the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, allowing for the continued applicability of the ICCPR (ratified under colonial rule) following their handover back to the PRC government in 1997 and 1999 respectively.
96 ICESCR, Article 15.
97 Raymond Williams, ‘The Analysis of Culture’, in Culture: Critical Concepts in Sociology, ed. Chris Jenks, (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2003), 28; Tony Bennett, Culture: A Reformer’s Science. Cultural Media Policy (New York: SAGE Publications, 1998), 27.
98 Naomi Mezey, ‘Law as Culture Law as Culture’, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 13 (2001): 36; Roger Cotterrell, ‘Law in Culture’, Law, Culture and Society 17, no. 1 (2004): 6.
99 Claudia Strauss and Naomi Quinn, A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning. Publications of the Society for Psychological Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Kenneth Allan, The Meaning of Culture: Moving the Postmodern Critique Forward (New York: Praeger, 1998).
100 Philip Smith, Cultural Theory: An Introduction. 21st Century Sociology (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2001): 73–97; Geert H. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations (New York: SAGE Publications, 2001).
101 Mahadev Apte, ‘Language in Sociocultural Context’, in Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics Vol. 4., eds. Edward K. Brown and others (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1994), 2000–10.
102 Al Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Printing Office, 1952), 41.
103 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom (London; John Murray, 1871).
104 Federico Lenzerini, ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Living Culture of Peoples’, European Journal of International Law 22, no. 1 (2011): 103–7. Janet Blake, ‘On Defining the Cultural Heritage’, International & Comparative Law Quarterly 49, no. 1 (2000): 68.
105 UNESCO, World Conference on Cultural Policies, UN Doc. CLT/MD/1 (Paris: UNESCO, November 1982), 41.
106 Wim Van Zanten, Glossary on Intangible Cultural Heritage (The Hague: Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, 2002), 4.
107 CESCR, General Comment No. 21: Right of everyone to take part in cultural life (art. 15, para. 1 (a), of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Doc. E/C.21/GC/21 (Geneva: UN, 21 December 2009).
108 Ibid., para. 3.
109 Ibid., paras 32–3.
110 Roger O’keefe, “The ‘Right to Take Part in Cultural Life’, under Article 15 of the ICESCR”, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1998): 910.
111 UNESCO, Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
112 Ibid.
113 CESCR, General Comment No. 21, para. 15.
114 Jiang Jie, ‘No Fast for CPC Members during Ramadan’, Global Times, July 3, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20181121155212/, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/868638.shtml; Sautman, ‘Scaling Back Minority Rights?’, 71; Edmund Waite, ‘The Impact of the State on Islam amongst the Uyghurs: Religious Knowledge and Authority in the Kashgar Oasis’, Central Asian Survey 25, no. 3 (2006): 255–56; Wellens, ‘Negotiable Rights?’, 441.
115 CESCR, General Comment No. 21, para. 21.
116 Holder, ‘On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination’, 7.
117 Ibid., 28–30; Nick Cumming-Bruce, ‘China Rebuked by 22 Nations Over Xinjiang Repression’, New York Times, July 10, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-rights.html.
118 Government of the People’s Republic of China, Initial Reports Submitted by States Parties under Articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – China, UN Doc. E/1990/5/Add.59 (Geneva: UN, 27 June 2003).
119 Ibid., paras 233–283.
120 Ibid., para. 252.
121 Ibid.
122 CESCR, Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – China, UN Doc. E/C.12/1/Add.107 (Geneva: UN, May 13, 2005), para. 38.
123 Government of the People’s Republic of China, Second Periodic Reports Submitted by States Parties under Articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – China, E/C.12/CHN/2 (Geneva: UN, 30 June 2010).
124 Ibid., 64, 70.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid., 75.
127 Ibid.
128 CESCR, Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – China, UN Doc. E/C.12/CHN/CO/2 (Geneva: UN, 13 June 2014).
129 Ibid., para. 36.
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Ross Holder
Ross Holder is a Post-doctoral Researcher.