Muslims In China: Everything You Need To Know About ISIS and Uighur Threat Against Chinese

The first Islamic State group threat against China has been made, according to jihadist tracking experts. A 30-minute video published by an ISIS group in Iraq Monday included soldiers from China’s Uighur minority group killing a purported informant.

Uighur people have mainly lived in the autonomous Xinjiang region in China, where nearly 10 million of them account for half the region’s population. Muslims generally enjoy religious freedom in China, but authorities in the Xinjiang region “tightly control religious activity,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Xinjiang is an area of special concern because of its region's ethnic and religious ties to neighboring states, as well as the fact that it is the base of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant Islamic separatist group. Some experts say that the threat of ETIM is exaggerated, while others doubt the group’s existence,” the Council on Foreign Relations states.

Uighurs have reportedly experienced discrimination for practicing Islam in the Xinjiang region. After a number of terrorist attacks at multiple railway stations in 2014, government officials implemented restrictions on religious activities during Ramadan and wearing Islamic-related clothing like headscarves.

The video this week marked the first time Uighur militants have cited their commitment to ISIS and suggested China is now a subject of “jihadist rhetoric,” according to Michael Clarke, a China expert at the National Security College of Australian National University.

"Oh, you Chinese who do not understand what people say! We are the soldiers of the Caliphate, and we will come to you to clarify to you with the tongues of our weapons, to shed blood like rivers and avenging the oppressed," a Uighur militant said in the video, according to a translation from the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks global terrorism. Another militant said: "Our land of Sharia has been constructed with spilt blood."