China has detained Uighur women, separating them from their Pakistani husbands

15, Mar 2018 | CJP Team

Legislators in Pakistani’s northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan have called on Chinese authorities in the neighbouring country’s Xinjiang province to free at least 50 Chinese women who are married to Pakistani men, the Guardian reported. Some of these women have been detained for a year over murky accusations of extremism. They were reportedly apprehended last year when visiting family in Xinjiang. China has cracked down on its Uighur Muslim minority since 2014, when 29 people were killed in a train station by terrorists with knives. Uighur men in Xinjiang are prohibited from having long beards, and parents are barred from naming their children Muhammad. In January, US-backed news group Radio Free Asia reported that at least 120,000 Uighurs had been detained in “re-education camps” in Xinjiang.