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Comment by anonchan | Hacker News Reader

The forced labor described in the article is unjustifiable. But China imprisoning populations solely for having a different religion and culture is worse than America imprisoning people for (at least mostly) real criminal convictions.

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Our criminal justice system is designed to incarcerate black people. A third of black people will be incarcerated at some point in their lives. You're six times as likely to be incarcerated if you're black than if you're white.

... And about ten or eleven times more likely to be incarcerated if you're male than female. Does this mean that the 'justice system' was twice as well 'designed to incarcerate' men?

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/genderinc.html

the point is that there is too much Sinaphobia in mainstream western news outlets that means global north countries' behavior is not proportionately called out. many stories about China are unfounded and dangerous, and mostly have to do with China being technologically strong.

Sinophobia*

93% are men, 7% women.

Our criminal justice system is designed to incarcerate men.

edit: High five to sibling comment.

your point? both statistics are valid and relevant, and aren't mutually exclusive.

weird comment. statistics aren't a game you win.

I think the point is that the narrative that one choose to tell is based on which statistics one chooses to look at.

I think looking at each statistics has value when viewed together, and I would add a third one to the mix. Race is somewhat a predictor for being incarcerated. Gender slightly stronger. Wealth is slightly stronger than that with a 20x time higher rate for the bottom 10% compared to the top 10%.

For countries with high rate of refugees from specific regions on the planet, religion also becomes a predictor for incarceration.

> But China imprisoning populations solely for having a different religion and culture is worse than America imprisoning people for (at least mostly) real criminal convictions.

My culture says that growing and smoking cannabis is good. The US disagrees and makes that nonviolent crime a felony. The Uyghur culture says that worshipping Allah is good. China disagrees and makes that nonviolent crime a felony.

What's the difference, exactly? What makes one criminal conviction "real" and the other not?

Our incarceration system is no less culture-bound when we have half a million people imprisoned (1 in 5 prisoners) for nonviolent drug crimes.

You're asking "how should we decide what is moral or criminal", which is just a bit smaller a question than "what is the meaning of life?"

I'm actually saying that it's derisible to say that our incarceration system is less culture-bound when we have half a million people imprisoned (1 in 5 prisoners) for nonviolent drug crimes.

> But China imprisoning populations solely for having a different religion and culture

Do you have any evidence for this claim that isn't compromised by a State Department-sized CoI? I'm genuinely curious.

Is that so hard to find? Here is a list of academics jailed for their ethnicity, as part if the genocide.

https://shahit.biz/supp/list_003.pdf

Wow, you unironically just linked a Radio Free Asia[1] rag after I requested sources that don't have a "State Department sized CoI".

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radio_Free_Asia&m...

This is what Gene Bunin, the author of that list, had to say about his own database:

> "we have over 10000+ documented people" was the initial comment. Neither boasting nor saying 100% are credible."

Sounds incredibly reliable to me.

[1] https://twitter.com/shahitbiz/status/1306554296088096769

Here is the wikipedia page of the very 1st person on the list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halmurat_Upur

Evidence is hard to come by because the CCP isn’t forthcoming in the least, but we do have the investigative journalism of the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/podcasts/uighurs-coverage...

An I missing something or NYT is just linking to Zenz's and Allen-Ebrahimian's dubious claims?

I think this Chinese government website might not have been compromised: http://www.chinapeace.gov.cn/chinapeace/c25030/2012-06/19/co...

A man surnamed Ibrahim (so probably member of a Turkic Muslim minority) was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of 200,000 RMB for illegally importing and selling illegal religious and/or pirated publications.

Whether that's evidence of "China imprisoning populations solely for having a different religion and culture" depends on how much emphasis you put on the "solely". If he'd actually been licensed, he probably wouldn't have been arrested, but on the other hand I know a woman selling all kinds of Taoist snakeoil, and I don't think anyone's bothered to investigate her, so his religion likely played a role.

It's very possible though that the guy was selling "illegal" Qurans, prayer mats and incantation beads, all of which are illegal material in Communist China. There's no chance in hell he could have legalized that business whatsoever, simply because the Chinese government does not take a liking to the Muslim faith (partly because they can't control it like they control the churches due to its decentralized nature).

The centralized organisation serving as a conduit between the government and Muslims is the Islamic Association of China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Association_of_China Among other things, it has produced an official translation of the Qur'an, published by China Social Sciences Press http://www.csspw.com.cn/booksclass_159590_1_2__0_issueddate_... If he'd been selling that one, it would've been unproblematic. (But also unlikely to be very profitable.)

This doesn't remotely support the claim of genocide. The guy was actually accused, tried and convicted of a crime, probably involving the distribution of jihadi material.

The crime of illegally distributing documents would be brutally prosecuted in the US, possibly outside the legal system. Whether it's jihadi material or pirated Disney films.

> This doesn't remotely support the claim of genocide.

You didn't ask about genocide in the comment I replied to.

> The guy was actually accused, tried and convicted of a crime, probably involving the distribution of jihadi material.

The police seized 125250 copies. I doubt jihad is nearly that popular. (His city of Hetian only has 400,000 inhabitants.) But importing any kind of religious publication beyond a small amount for personal use requires express permission http://www.gov.cn/ziliao/flfg/2007-04/20/content_589295.htm paragraph 10. Most likely it was just an edition of the Qur'an that hadn't been officially approved by the Islamic Association of China.

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