The violation of human security and identity of Uyghur Muslim community through social construction process

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Nuril Khoiriyah
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2881

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The violation of human security and identity of Uyghur Muslim

community through social construction process

Nuril Khoiriyah

International Relation, Gadjah Mada

University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Correspondence

Nuril Khoiriyah, International Relation, Gadjah

Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Email: nurilkhoiriyah@gmail.com

The security of the Uyghur ethnic community in Xinjiang became an international

concern after media reports about the existence of re-education camps. History has

recorded that the Uyghur often experienced violation of their human security rights.

This violation worsened when the Chinese Community Party (CCP) succeeded in

controlling the entire mainland. The three pillars of human security that should be

ensured by the state, freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom to live in

dignity were violated by the CCP. Using the theory of social construction process,

the finding of the research was that the violations aimed to insert socialist and com-

munist values into Uyghur's identity and to control their province, which rich in natu-

ral resources.

KEYWORDS

community security, human security, re-education camps, Uyghur, Xinjiang

1|INTRODUCTION

The declining number of wars between states after the end of the

Cold War shifted the focus of security from protection of the state by

the military, to protection of individuals and minority, ethnic, religious,

and indigenous groups within the state. Recently, the security of the

Uyghur community in Xinjiang became a matter of international con-

cern. Several medias, organizations, researchers as well as survivors

revealed the existence of re-education camps inside this province.

The camps were found to be places where the state threatened the

human security of the Uyghur. The Chinese government claimed that

this community was an extremist and terrorist group that endangered

state authority. Uyghur, together with other local communities labeled

as “other”because of their strong religion, which were said to

threaten the atheist-communist belief (Mukherjee, 2015). The govern-

ment also argued that the collapse of Soviet Union and the indepen-

dence of Central Asian countries led to the growth of extremism and

terrorism in Xinjiang. Therefore, the state tightened its policies by

imprisoning several Uyghur leaders, promulgating the Strike Hard

Campaign (yanda) in 1995 and the National Strategy for Combating

Terrorism after the 9/11 tragedy in the United States (Millward &

Peterson, 2020). Furthermore, Xi Jinping depicted Xinjiang as a chal-

lenging area that could be pacified only through striking hard. The key

realizing this strict policy was by fully involving the CCP

1

and its

cadres. The justification used by the Chinese government was to re-

educate the Uyghur through re-education camps. Moreover, massive

repressions for several years had a psychological effect. Ethnographic

and discourse research found that Uyghurs experience themselves as

lesser citizen than other Chinese ethnic groups. The repression went

against the Westphalian Treaty, which guaranteed the rights of citi-

zens, including human security needs.

Some research has been done on the violation of Uyghurs rights,

but little attention has been paid to their human security needs. The

present paper interrogates the Chinese government's violation of

the Uyghur's human security and seeks to answer the following ques-

tions: What is the purpose of the violation of human security in Xin-

jiang? What are the violations and how are they being implemented?

What approaches are necessary to end the Uyghur's suffering? To

answer these questions, I have used the theory of social construction

process in order to uncover the purpose of the violation. I have used a

qualitative correlation by identifying the Chinese government as an

independent variable, and the human security and identity of the

Uyghur ethnic community as a dependent variable. Data was collected

1

This article will use CCP as a shorthand instead of writing the Chinese Community Party

each time.

Received: 30 December 2021 Revised: 30 May 2023 Accepted: 24 June 2023

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2881

J Public Affairs. 2023;23:e2881. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2881