“I grew up (with the idea) being instilled (in me) that fifty-six nations compose one family. This was the first time that a person showed me a social issue which was hidden by the media."
Poets — and the musicians who perform their lyrics — are at the forefront of Uyghur culture. If they were to be given even limited...
Poetry has a long and proud tradition in Uyghur culture. But it is being threatened in Xinjiang, where the Chinese state has been attempting to re-engineer Uyghur society by silencing and eliminating Uyghur cultural thought.
Up until 2018, Lunar New Year celebrations were conspicuously absent from Uyghur society. Today, it is the largest cultural event of the year — for the wrong reasons.
Urumqi No. 1 Primary school, 2018: Uyghur script “disappeared.” Photo by Joanne Smith Finley Uyghur “patriotism” now requires the active disavowal of the Uyghur way...
When Chinese state authorities prepared to release Gulbahar Jelil, an ethnic Uyghur woman born and raised in Kazakhstan, they told her that she was forbidden to...