The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has criticized the recent announcement of the Chinese government to place the old town of Kashgar in Xinjiang/East Turkestan under special protection as an attempt to create a façade of normality in the midst of an ongoing genocide. “The Chinese government is planning to market the Uyghur region as a tourist attraction. Surveillance is less visible than it was a few years ago, but the crimes continue. More than half a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic peoples are currently imprisoned in Xinjiang / East Turkestan. Democratic states must not fall for this perfidious strategy,” criticized Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention, on Thursday.

Around 15 percent of the historic city of Kasghar have been spared from China’s destructive rage. Now, the government is planning to place these areas under protection. “A small remnant of the Uyghur tradition and culture will become tourist folklore to create an illusion of normality. At the same time, Uyghur children are sent to state-run forced boarding schools, while many of their parents are in prison or doing forced labor. Mosques were closed and converted to restaurants, bars, hostels, and even to public toilets. Uyghurs who are not in prison or doing forced labor are only allowed to dance, sing, and wear traditional costumes for tourists. This Disneyfication is part of the destruction strategy,” Schedler stated.  

According to Radio Free Asia, the guidelines for the protection of the old town of Kashgar were published on March 31, 2024 and will come into force on May 1. Since 2009, the Chinese government has ordered the destruction of 85 Percent of the old city of Kashgar, the cultural center of the Uyghurs. The Chinese authorities are justifying the demolition of the old town by stating that this will protect the people from earthquakes, improve their living conditions, and solve the problem of a lack of extinguishing water in the event of fires. However, many of the houses have withstood numerous earthquakes over hundreds of years. “As with the destruction of the old town of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in the early 1990s, the real reason is to gain control over the people. Due to the narrow streets in the two old towns, it was difficult to fully monitor the local population – so the Chinese government decided to destroy them,” Schedler said.