The ‘happiest Muslims in the world’ and their GPS trackers
Politics & Current Affairs
- “How the ‘Happiest Muslims in the World’ are coping with their happiness” is the caustic title of a grim account of ordinary Uyghurs’ lives rights now by Gene A. Bunin, a Uyghur-speaking scholar and longtime resident of Xinjiang.
- The testimony of an ethnic Kazakh woman who fled from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan after working in a re-education camp was published to YouTube with English subtitles on July 14. The Financial Times now reports (paywall) that “Deliberations were scheduled to end last week but have been extended to begin again on Wednesday after the judge rejected Ms Sauytbay’s plea bargain to face criminal charges in Kazakhstan rather than be deported to China.”
- “About 11,500 Chinese Muslims are joining the Hajj this year, fewer than the 12,800 last year” according to nationalist rag the Global Times. About 3,300 of them will carry a GPS device that will “help Chinese organizers” see their real-time location. The Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that observant Muslims try to attend at least once in their lives.
