How a school in Turkey is helping #Uyghur children whose parents have been interned or detained in #Xinjiang to preserve their mother tongue and culture. aljazeera.com/features/2022/…
"Of the 160 students, about 10 live in the school’s dormitories. All their family members were either imprisoned or forced into internment camps in Xinjiang. China calls the camps “vocational education and training centres”."
"Abdulrahman Abbas, 14, sits beside Abduzayir on the bottom bunk, leaning forward with his hands clasped together. “I miss my mom’s cooking, staying together, and so much more,” he says in a quiet voice. His brown hair falls over the side of his wistful face."
"Abbas also lives at the school. His mother was sentenced to prison and he has not had contact with his father in Xinjiang for six years. Fearing the repressive climate in Xinjiang, both Abbas and Abduzayir’s families sent them to live with friends in Istanbul around 2015.
But a few months later, they lost all contact with their parents and their parents’ friends could no longer take care of them. Abbas says he is aware of what is happening back in China."
“China is oppressing and imprisoning people,” he mumbles softly, glancing up and flicking his hair out of his eyes. “Maybe they are arresting us because we came to Turkey to get an education. And the Chinese don’t want us [Uighurs] to study.”
Over the years, Uighur schools have sprung up among diaspora communities to ensure their culture survives, while providing support to children whose family members have disappeared in Xinjiang.
Along with this one, several similar schools have been established in Istanbul over the years."
“We have to teach our children who we are and that East Turkestan is our homeland so that they never forget where they belong,” says 49-year-old Habibullah Kuseni, the founder of the school, which is in the seaside city of Selimpasa in Istanbul province.
“In China, we can no longer speak Uighur without being arrested.”
"Kuseni fled Xinjiang in 2012 after Chinese authorities arrested him nine times. As more Uighur families arrived in Turkey, he started a tutoring programme in Uighur language and history out of his apartment.
“But now we are in another country and it gives us an opportunity to preserve and build upon our language, history, and culture,” explains Kuseni, who says more than 40 of his family members in Xinjiang have been sent to camps or prisons.
“Many children came here with their parents,” explains Kuseni. “But the parents would go back and forth from Istanbul to East Turkestan for business and education.
They didn’t realise the severity of what was happening and so they got caught up in the camps. None of us ever thought it would get as bad as it is now.”
"As the situation worsened in Xinjiang, Uighurs in Turkey stepped up their efforts to preserve and develop the Uighur culture and identity and to care for children whose families have disappeared in Xinjiang."
"At least 30 of the students have both of their parents in the camps and are staying with relatives or family friends in Istanbul, he says. The parents of another four children died in the internment camps."
“Many of the children have no idea when they will ever see their loved ones again, or if they are even still alive,” says 30-year-old Muyesser Tursun, who teaches mathematics and computer sciences at the school. Several of her own relatives have been imprisoned in China.
“The children from a very young age are forgetting what it’s like to have parents or a family. We are trying our best to provide that parental and familial support to them, but it’s not enough. They are missing the love of their parents and that has negative psychological effects
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