It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings.
But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison.
Banning Uyghur songs is like the least ban thing china is doing. Its the only thing left at this point because they’ve already done the forced detainment, forced sterilization and forced cultural erasure of the entire Uyghur population.