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Amid the protracted conflict and rising Islamophobia in China, Communist Party officials are responding by creating a surveillance state. In the 12 months preceding September 2017 alone, the party-state advertised nearly 100,000 security positions in Xinjiang. Every resident of the region has been affixed with the label “safe,” “normal,” or “unsafe,” based on metrics such as age, faith, religious practices, foreign contacts, and experience abroad. Those deemed unsafe, whether or not they are guilty of wrongdoing, are regularly detained and imprisoned without due process.
Estimates indicate that as many as 800,000 individuals, mostly Uighurs, have been incarcerated in the re-education camps. Based on the current population of Uighurs in Xinjiang, which stands at some 11 million, this amounts to the extrajudicial detention of nearly 10 percent of the ethno-national group.
The man, from a middle-class Uighur family, came to study in the United States a few years ago. He succeeded in the Chinese education system, even earning a degree from a university in eastern China. In 2017, Iman flew back to China for the summer recess, planning to spend time with friends on the east coast before he returned to Xinjiang to see his mother. Despite the exhaustion from the long flight, he was filled with joy as he landed in the Chinese metropolis where he’d previously lived for several years, despite the discrimination he would likely face. Ethnic minorities in China, especially Uighurs, are often denied hotel rooms.
As he remained strapped in his seat, a flight attendant approached. “They are asking for you,” the woman told him. “It’s probably just a visa issue.” Her words were of little comfort — after all, he possessed a Chinese passport.
Iman was held for nine days in a local jail while the border authorities contacted law enforcement from his hometown in Xinjiang. He was the only Uighur in a room of 34. On the ninth day of his incarceration, the police squad from Xinjiang arrived. They cuffed Iman tightly and transported him to the train station. “Are the handcuffs necessary?” Iman asked. “Don’t ask questions,” one officer demanded. “We are being lenient — you are supposed to be shackled, too.”
An officer took his photograph, measured his height and weight, and told him to strip down to his underwear. They also shaved his head. Less than two weeks before, Iman was an aspiring graduate at one of the top research universities in the United States. Now, he was a prisoner in an extrajudicial detention center.
Still in his underwear, Iman was assigned to a room with 19 other Uighur men. Upon entering the quarters, lit by a single light bulb, a guard issued Iman a bright yellow vest. An inmate then offered the young man a pair of shorts. Iman began scanning the cell. The tiled room was equipped with one toilet, a faucet, and one large kang-style platform bed — supa in Uighur — where all of the inmates slept. He was provided with simple eating utensils: a thin metal bowl and a spoon.
The Chinese Communist Party’s approach is radical but one officials will not abandon anytime soon. At a recent security meeting in Kashgar in Xinjiang, a Han Chinese official tolda crowd of Uighurs: “You can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one by one — you need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”
Full Article - http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/28/a-summer-vacation-in-chinas-muslim-gulag/
In case any of you thought minorities in democracies had it bad, this article is a must read. 10% of the population in extra judicial custody?
Amid the protracted conflict and rising Islamophobia in China, Communist Party officials are responding by creating a surveillance state. In the 12 months preceding September 2017 alone, the party-state advertised nearly 100,000 security positions in Xinjiang. Every resident of the region has been affixed with the label “safe,” “normal,” or “unsafe,” based on metrics such as age, faith, religious practices, foreign contacts, and experience abroad. Those deemed unsafe, whether or not they are guilty of wrongdoing, are regularly detained and imprisoned without due process.
Estimates indicate that as many as 800,000 individuals, mostly Uighurs, have been incarcerated in the re-education camps. Based on the current population of Uighurs in Xinjiang, which stands at some 11 million, this amounts to the extrajudicial detention of nearly 10 percent of the ethno-national group.
The man, from a middle-class Uighur family, came to study in the United States a few years ago. He succeeded in the Chinese education system, even earning a degree from a university in eastern China. In 2017, Iman flew back to China for the summer recess, planning to spend time with friends on the east coast before he returned to Xinjiang to see his mother. Despite the exhaustion from the long flight, he was filled with joy as he landed in the Chinese metropolis where he’d previously lived for several years, despite the discrimination he would likely face. Ethnic minorities in China, especially Uighurs, are often denied hotel rooms.
As he remained strapped in his seat, a flight attendant approached. “They are asking for you,” the woman told him. “It’s probably just a visa issue.” Her words were of little comfort — after all, he possessed a Chinese passport.
Iman was held for nine days in a local jail while the border authorities contacted law enforcement from his hometown in Xinjiang. He was the only Uighur in a room of 34. On the ninth day of his incarceration, the police squad from Xinjiang arrived. They cuffed Iman tightly and transported him to the train station. “Are the handcuffs necessary?” Iman asked. “Don’t ask questions,” one officer demanded. “We are being lenient — you are supposed to be shackled, too.”
An officer took his photograph, measured his height and weight, and told him to strip down to his underwear. They also shaved his head. Less than two weeks before, Iman was an aspiring graduate at one of the top research universities in the United States. Now, he was a prisoner in an extrajudicial detention center.
Still in his underwear, Iman was assigned to a room with 19 other Uighur men. Upon entering the quarters, lit by a single light bulb, a guard issued Iman a bright yellow vest. An inmate then offered the young man a pair of shorts. Iman began scanning the cell. The tiled room was equipped with one toilet, a faucet, and one large kang-style platform bed — supa in Uighur — where all of the inmates slept. He was provided with simple eating utensils: a thin metal bowl and a spoon.
The Chinese Communist Party’s approach is radical but one officials will not abandon anytime soon. At a recent security meeting in Kashgar in Xinjiang, a Han Chinese official tolda crowd of Uighurs: “You can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one by one — you need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”
Full Article - http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/28/a-summer-vacation-in-chinas-muslim-gulag/
In case any of you thought minorities in democracies had it bad, this article is a must read. 10% of the population in extra judicial custody?
