Photo: GT

Senior officials from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Friday refuted the latest rumors from Western media, including a New York Times report that the Xinjiang government sends children to boarding schools to "brainwash" them with patriotic education. 

The officials said such reports were "baseless" and "packaged with fakery."

Chinese analysts said that certain Western media have ramped up efforts in making baseless news and spreading rumors about Xinjiang without considering the work ethics or their reputations. 

More people around the world deserve to know the truth about Xinjiang, experts and officials said.

The Information Office of the People's Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region held the press conference on Friday.

"[Such reports are] completely subjective fabrication," Parhati Rouzi, an official from Kashi Prefecture, said during the press conference in Urumqi. 

"Boarding school education has been an effective way to improve educational levels and reduce the burden on students and their parents in China's remote areas," Parhati said. 

The New York Times report claims the Xinjiang government sends children to boarding schools, separates them forcefully from their parents, "replaces ethnic languages with Mandarin" and "brainwashes" them with patriotic education.

The officials dismissed the report.

"As Xinjiang is a vast region, there are a significant number of students who live far away from their schools, and therefore many of them choose to live on campus… It is up to students and their parents to decide whether or not to choose boarding education," Parhati said.

In response to the accusation that the regional government sends children to boarding schools to kill the languages and cultures of ethnic minorities, Parhati said that "primary and secondary education in Xinjiang utilizes six languages to teach, offering courses in standard national language and ethnic minority languages."

Photo: Xinhua

"Learning and using the country's common language is a constitutional right, and no one should be deprived of this right. The US is known for its ethnic and cultural diversity, but how could ethnic minorities succeed in American society if they don't learn English?" Parhati said. 

 "We'd like to point out that the US has decimated the indigenous culture of the American continent, and some of its media and politicians are now portraying Xinjiang to be committing the historical sins of their own country," he added. 

Parhati said that the New York Times despicably made irresponsible remarks about Xinjiang's patriotic education to primary school students.

 "All countries in the world educate their young people to love their country. Don't schools in the US conduct patriotic education? In fact, since the end of 19th century, it has been a tradition of American primary and secondary school students to recite and remember the Pledge of Allegiance," Parhati said.

An 11-year-old American boy was reportedly arrested in February 2019 for refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag, which showed that the US has also attached great importance to patriotic education, Parhati said. 

The senior official also rebuked rumors on China sending officials to stay with ethnic minorities to "ask ethnic people to eat pork."

No good person would fabricate lies such as China "demands Muslims drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and eat pork," or that "ethnic Han men sleep in the same room as local women," the official said.

Parhati introduced that on November 2019, Zomure Dawut said she "found herself land in a pork meal in her 'relative's home." 

In fact, Parhati said, "the 'relative' Zomure referred to is her fifth elder brother Abudhl Dawut's 'relative.' In October 2017, Abudhl was paired with Zhao Qilin as 'relatives.'"

Zhao Qilin invited Abudhl Dawut, his wife and younger sister Zomure and Zomure's children to Zhao's house. 

Zhao's mother prepared and cooked the meal for them. Zhao's mother is an ethnic Hui and only eats Halal food, he explained. 

"The pork meal claimed by Zomure was totally nonexistent. It is lies fabricated by Zomure. During the meal, they also took pictures," Parhati showed the picture at the press conference, in which every dish they had was marked and no pork was spotted.

Certain Western media also reported that the former president of Xinjiang University, Tashpolat Teyip, was sentenced to death for attempting to split the country.

Parhati responded to these reports, saying Tashpolat was arrested for corruption and accepting bribes on May 7, 2018, and the intermediate court of Urumqi held an open trial on June 13, 2019.

Tashpolat's case was conducted in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations,  and his rights were "fully protected," he said. 

Before the trial, Tashpolat told his family via his lawyer that they should not attend the trial, Parhati noted.

In response to reports of mass mosque demolitions, Parhati said the number of mosques in Xinjiang has increased from 2,000 at the beginning of China's reform and opening-up to more than 24,000, or one mosque for every 530 Muslims in Xinjiang.

The number of religious personnel has increased from 3,000 to 29,000, Parhati said. 

"Do these figures exemplify religious freedom or are they the result of the 'large-scale demolition' of mosques?" he said.  

The official on Friday also refuted rumors about forced labor at Xinjiang vocational education and training centers.  

Trainees who were on the education and training program, which consists of learning national common language, law, skills and de-radicalization courses, have all graduated, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said during a press conference on December 9.

"To remedy a lack of occupational skills and employment difficulties, vocational skills training programs are provided… The education and training centers combine course learning with practical training to improve the trainees' operational skills… after graduation, the trainees can choose their own jobs… There is not any forced labor," Parhati said. 

Experts said one-sided and biased Western media reports on Xinjiang have alleged forced labor and forced separation of children from their parents.

Like the reports of alleged leaked internal documents, these reports had no truth but only baseless stories, Chinese analysts said. 

Western media use negative words and cherry-pick facts to fabricate a miserable image of Xinjiang in order to slander China, they said.

Tu Lingbo from Communication University of China was cited in a report from Cankaoxiaoxi as saying that "Western media and their reporters have bias and misunderstanding on China. They would bring these stereotypes into their stories on China, which made their stories full of 'speculative facts' instead of proved facts and some simple incidents would be made complicated, ideologicalized and politicalized."