Abduweli Ayup

What kind of language rights violations do Uyghur people in China face?

Everyone in China has the right to use their language. It’s guaranteed in Article 4 of the Chinese Constitution. But what is happening now in many places in China is violating that constitutional right.

In education, we have the freedom to use our language from primary school to university. However, since 2016, the Uyghur language has been completely shut out of the education system, and only Mandarin Chinese is used. Even very young kids in kindergarten cannot use their language at school, and many of them board at their kindergarten six days a week.

Our language rights are also violated in healthcare situations. Interpreters are not provided at the hospital or doctors’ offices, even if someone only knows Uyghur; the only language on offer is Mandarin. There used to be some private hospitals where people could use the Uyghur language, but those have been closed and many of the staff have been imprisoned.

We also have the right to publish in our language and express our ideas, but it doesn’t exist in practice. We should also have the right to privacy, but this doesn’t exist for us, either. These days, the Chinese government sends people into Uyghur homes, maybe once or twice a week, to monitor our language practices with family members.

Finally, according to the Chinese constitution, everyone in the country has the right to protect their language. This is our right, our constitutional right. But when I stood up to protect my language, they persecuted me.

What work did you do in China to defend Uyghur people’s language rights, and how did the government respond to this work?

The main thing I did was set up a private kindergarten. It was totally legal. I really looked into it carefully before I started, because I didn’t want any trouble. I examined the Chinese constitution and looked at the relevant laws. According to the law, Mandarin is compulsory at all levels from primary school onwards. But in kindergarten, it’s legal to just use the Uyghur language, without Mandarin. So that’s what I did, and I was arrested and sent to prison on false charges.

My imprisonment was also punishment for my other activities. I wrote essays about the importance of protecting the Uyghur language. I also wrote about the relevant laws to show people that it’s legal. I translated documents from the United Nations into Uyghur, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which China signed. It guarantees children the right to use their language, and I wanted Uyghur people to know that they have this right.

I also spoke to lots of community leaders, academics, and government leaders about language rights. I was always careful when I did this. Uyghur people who struggle for their rights are often accused of being separatists or terrorists. So, I also went to other communities, not just Uyghur people, and spoke to them about their language rights. In Xinjiang, where I’m from, there are many ethnic groups — such as Mongols, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Xibe — and I made efforts to promote language rights for all of them.   

Beyond the Uyghur context, what challenges do language rights defenders throughout China face?

I am a scholar and a linguist. So before I fled China, I had lots of connections to other academics in other parts of the country — like Tibetan, Korean, Kazakh, and Mongolian scholars. I also had the chance to do fieldwork in some places, like with Salar communities in Qinghai Province. Before I was arrested, it was possible for me to build personal connections and talk to people about language rights. However, even at that time, you could not really start a social movement to defend language rights in China.

Things changed drastically after I was imprisoned, and they got worse after Xi Jinping came to power. In Xinjiang, my friends all started disappearing from social media around 2016, and after that they started disappearing into prison. 

Now, for so many people in China, and even outside the country, there is a pervasive feeling of fear when it comes to issues of human rights. I spoke to one professor who had fled the country and was granted asylum outside. Although they are living in safety now, they would not speak to me about language rights issues in China. Many people from China who live outside are not free to speak up because they fear for their friends and family in China.

Outside China, we have programs like “Scholars at Risk” that could help academics and activists from China, but the real problem is how to get the information to them safely. How can we help them without putting them at risk?