Researchers from HRW and the Norway-based organization Uyghur Hjelp studied village names in Xinjiang on the website of China's National Bureau of Statistics for 14 years.
They found that the names of 3,600 of Xinjiang's 25,000 villages had changed during this period.
HRW said that while most of these name changes were “seemingly ordinary,” about a fifth (630) removed references to Uyghur religion, culture or history.
Words with meaning to the Uyghur people of China, including: take overTitles of Sufi religious teachers, political or honorary titles, e.g. sultan and beg – HRW's claims were replaced with words reflecting “recent Chinese Communist Party ideology,” including “harmony” and “happiness.”
In one case highlighted in the report, Ak Meshit ('White Mosque'), a village in Akto County, southwestern Xinjiang, was renamed Unity Village in 2018.
A growing body of evidence points to systematic human rights abuses against the country's Uyghur Muslim population. Beijing denies these accusations.
Most of China's Uyghur Muslims live in the country's northwest, including Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia.
In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London denied the accusations.
“People of all ethnic groups enjoy freedom of religious belief under the law. “The language and culture of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are protected and promoted,” they said.
