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Xinjiang

August 1, 2005
November 28, 2012

Wang Lequan, the Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, announced July 25 that university students from outside Xinjiang will be exempt from the civil service examination if they master a minority language during their two-year volunteer service and remain in Xinjiang after completing their tour. Wang made the announcement at a reception for university-level volunteers hailing from the predominantly Han Chinese areas of Guangdong, Gansu, and Shanxi provinces, and Beijing municipality. Since the government launched the program in 2003, a total of 1,379 university students have served two-year volunteer tours in Xinjiang, and 110 of these volunteers opted to remain in Xinjiang permanently, according to a July 26 Xinjiang Daily report.


July 28, 2005
November 28, 2012

The Xinjiang provincial education department will begin offering two-year degree programs in vocational schools this year, according to the July 27 Urumqi Evening News. The courses will be taught exclusively in Mandarin Chinese, reflecting an ongoing national and provincial campaign to promote Mandarin Chinese and reduce the use of local minority languages in schools (see 1 and 2 for related articles).


July 15, 2005
November 28, 2012

In "Silenced," Serena Fang, a journalist with the Public Broadcasting System program "Frontline," describes the treatment she and her interview subject received at the hands of Chinese authorities for conducting an interview that was not authorized by the government:


June 8, 2005
November 28, 2012

The Central Propaganda Department praised 18 model individuals and work units for "strengthening nationality unity" in a recently published "Ode to Progress in Minority Nationality Unity." The State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) Web site highlights the new work, which reflects a national campaign to "intensify propaganda on unity" among China's 56 ethnic nationalities.


May 31, 2005
March 1, 2013

More than 200,000 of Xinjiang's most well-educated citizens have moved out of the autonomous region since 1979, according to a May 1 article in the Workers Daily. Post-secondary schools outside Xinjiang admit more than 10,000 Xinjiang students each year, and fewer than half return to the autonomous region after graduation. The article says Xinjiang has 493,000 technically trained workers, just over half of whom are minorities.


May 10, 2005
March 1, 2013

Government officials in Kuche (Kuqa) county in Xinjiang have allocated RMB 1 million per year between 2004 and 2009 to improve Han language competency in primary schools, according to a May 10 article in the Xinjiang Daily. More than 90 percent of the county's 60,000 Uighur primary school students who study in Chinese now have working competency in the language, according to the report. The government has enrolled 150 Uighur teachers from the countryside in a five-year Han language program at the Northwest Nationalities Institute in Gansu province. The teachers will return to Kuche County during their school holidays to conduct Han language training sessions for other teachers, and to set up Han language testing centers.


April 27, 2005
March 1, 2013

April 27, 2005 - A group of Xinjiang tour guides established The Xinjiang Tour Guide Autonomous Protection Alliance on April 24, according to a report on Tianshan Net. 136 tour guides took the first steps to organize the non-governmental organization by signing a letter of intent in 2003. The report does not explain the two-year delay between the signing of the letter and the establishment of the Alliance. The Alliance hopes to elevate the status of the tour guide profession, protect the "legitimate interests" of Xinjiang’s tour guides, and improve the standards and training of tour guides.The report notes that there are more than 5,000 tour guides in Xinjiang, only some of whom are full-time employees of travel agencies.


April 22, 2005
March 1, 2013

The government of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region announced the specific selection criteria for prospective middle and high school students, according to an April 20 Urumqi News account. All students in China must take entrance examinations, but the government has preferential programs for ethnic minorities. The Xinjiang government will send 3,115 of the top applicants to special classes at high schools in eastern Chinese provinces, and will train another 3,000 students at local middle schools.


April 18, 2005
May 30, 2013

The Chinese government is conducting a "wholesale assault" against the Muslim faith of the Uighurs in northwest China, according to a new report jointly published by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China, entitled "Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang." The report is based on previously undisclosed regulations and documents intended strictly for internal circulation within the Chinese Communist Party and government organizations. The report’s appendix publishes five of these documents, including a document confirming that a large number of Uighurs have been arrested for alleged religious and state security offenses; a regulation strictly prohibiting minors from practicing religion; and a manual for officials with details on how to repress religion.


April 7, 2005
March 1, 2013

The Xinjiang government will hold open examinations for 700 civil service positions, according to Tianshan Net, a website jointly managed by Xinjiang’s Propaganda Department and the People’s Daily. 500 of these positions will go to ethnic Han Chinese, while ethnic nationalities, which make up over 60 percent of the region’s total population, will fill the remainder. Examinees with the highest scores will go to southern Xinjiang to serve for six-year terms in county and village-level government positions. Uighurs make up more than 95 percent of the population in southern Xinjiang. The government also said that it will not assign successful examinees to their hometowns.