Hui

(回族). Recognized by the CCP and the government as an “ethnic” minority, they are in fact a religious group, which includes those Muslims who are ethnically Han Chinese and speak various forms of the Chinese language, unlike the Uyghurs and the Ethnic Kazakhs, who are also Muslim Chinese citizens but are not ethnically Chinese and speak languages other than Chinese. There are between eight and ten million Hui, distributed all over China, although prevalently in the northwestern part of the country. Hailed for decades by the CCP as the “good” Chinese Muslims, opposed to the “bad” Uyghurs, they have also been victims of the recent crackdown on religion and started organizing manifestations of protest.