INTRODUCTION

China entered the twentieth century as the remains of an empire fragmented and crushed under pressure from especially Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Russia. After imperial rule had been overthrown, no powerful central authority was established for decades. When the Communist Party came to power in 1949, China soon turned into a state of fear. That process cost the lives of tens of millions of people because of the repressive and totalitarian methods the communists used to enforce their bloody ideology. The Chinese Communist Party resorted to violence to remain in power, and implemented one of the most savage and ruthless form of communism ever, enforcing one single way of living and thinking for the entire Chinese people. Throughout that period, those who refused to abide by the rules of their communist leaders were ruthlessly exterminated.

It is commonly assumed that the savage implementation of communism has come to an end. People no longer receive food in return for vouchers, no longer are required to wear uniforms, nor suffer torture because they are unable to learn Mao's "Little Red Book" by heart. Yet communism, adapted by the regime to the new world order, is still alive and well in all its ruthlessness.

In the eyes of the Communist Party, people are of value only as long as they can produce, and are allowed to think only within boundaries set by the Communist Party. They can freely express only thoughts in harmony with the party. The labor camps that exist through China, the system that humiliates and exploits millions of people in those camps, the mass executions in full public view, the torture methods widely employed in the prisons and the sale of the internal organs of those condemned to death, all reveal the ugly face of the communist administration. Despite all this, however, for the last 20 years a number of media outlets have been spreading the propaganda that China is rapidly preceding down a liberal and democratic path. One important point is often ignored: The fact that China has moved to capitalist practices in the economic field and has opened its gates to foreign investors in a number of areas, does not mean that there has also been a change in the country's political structure and ideology. On the contrary, the inhuman practices still common demonstrate that nothing has changed in the mentality of the ruling Communist Party. This will be clarified with a great many examples in subsequent chapters of this book.

A major area of communist savagery is East Turkestan, home to the Muslim Uighur Turks. Located at the westernmost point of China, East Turkestan has been under occupation for the last two centuries or so, and for the last 50 years in particular has suffered great oppression from the despotic regime of the communist Chinese administration. As a result of Chinese propaganda, East Turkestan is known to the world as "Xinjiang," or "Sinkiang" meaning "new borders" in Chinese, and most people are very unaware of the human drama going on there. Yet East Turkestan, the majority of whose population are Muslims of Uighur origin, is the scene of violence and oppression by the communist Chinese administration, the like of which is found in no other region of China. Torture, executions, labor camps and religious oppression have long been features of daily life in East Turkestan.

In recent years, there has been much talk about the increased freedom and liberalization in the economic arena in China. Yet the freedom is limited to specific areas, and the cruel and oppressive system in China has, in fact, not changed.

Muslims are arrested, kept for months (or even years) in Chinese prisons, which are notorious for torture, solely because they want to live by their religion. Many of those who fight for freedom and democracy for Turkestan are executed. Moreover, China's assimilationist policies have prevented the majority Muslim population of East Turkestan from speaking their own language, living by their own culture, from going on the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), performing their daily ritual prayers and fasting, and even forbidden them to determine their family size. The Muslims of East Turkestan expect people of good conscience all over the world to help them wage a war of ideas to bring communist oppression there to an end and make a concerted effort to inform the whole world about their plight.

China has turned East Turkestan into a closed region by restricting all means of communication, preventing the true dimensions of their human drama from being heard by the outside world. Yet that is no excuse for forgetting and behaving as if nothing were going on. For this reason, it is most important that all possible means be taken to stop the silence that prevails in the whole world on the subject of East Turkestan. If the true dimension of the inhumanity going on behind closed doors is revealed, this will not only help the wronged people to have their voices heard, but will also attract the world's attention to bring justice to East Turkestan.

The aim of this book is both to identify the basic causes of this communist oppression that has been going on all over China for more than half a century, and to make the voice of the wronged people of East Turkestan heard. Initiatives taken to allow the Muslims of East Turkestan to enjoy peace and security can only succeed if the fundamental causes of their oppression are documented and brought to the attention of the world.

This work documents that the fundamental reason behind the oppression in East Turkestan is the materialist philosophy and communist ideology that dominate the Chinese state. The violence caused by materialist philosophy, which regards life as a fight for survival (and suggests that progress is only possible by means of conflict) can only be eliminated if people turn to, and live by, the morality God commands. God has commanded people to live by justice, tolerance, love, compassion, respect, sacrifice, sharing, self-denial, and forgiveness. God has made it clear that ethnic differences are no justification for conflict, and that people must respect each others' races, languages, and beliefs. The acceptance of that moral code world wide is the only way to secure peace and tolerance. An intellectual war must be waged against the materialist ideology that is the fundamental support behind those who have oppressed others. For this reason this is the most important area required for peace and justice to prevail.

To oppose the oppression and injustice in the world, efforts must be made to spread the morality of the Qur'an, which is the real solution to this problem. A new age will dawn with the spreading of the morality of the Qur'an, by the will of God, in which injustice and oppression will be replaced by peace, security, and justice. The Qur'an bears good tidings about that new age:

God has promised those of you who believe and do right actions that He will make them successors in the land as He made those before them successors, and will firmly establish for them their religion with which He is pleased and give them, in place of their fear, security… (Qur'an, 24:55)

The people of East Turkestan have been crushed by the repressive communist system for more than half a century. Muslims are prevented from living their religion, and are trying to survive under particularly difficult conditions.