• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

How to Hide Illegal Detentions? China Gets Creative  

12/19/2018Li Zaili |

Fearing international inspectors seeking human rights abuses in Xinjiang, authorities adopt strict methods to conceal activities and to intimidate families into silence.

Chinese transformation through education camps, targeting the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority, have recently attracted international attention and condemnation, drawing calls for inspection teams to investigate the situation on the ground. To prepare for the possible arrival of inspectors, Xinjiang authorities are stepping up efforts to hide the truth about the camps.

According to a source in Xinjiang’s Ili prefecture, local officials have ordered personnel to collect key information on each detainee and to compile the information into a secret card file. Those detainees whose “crimes” are judged to be relatively minor could be transferred, for continued detention, to facilities that are less obviously prison-like, appearing more like low-cost housing.

Our sources report that senior officials have emphasized to personnel working on the project that their work must remain secret. One source reports being told, “Don’t reveal even one word of what you are doing, because foreign media could exploit it.” The information collection is closely monitored, and communication with the outside world during work is prohibited. When a task has been completed, all waste paper is shredded and personnel “are prohibited from taking out even half a piece of paper.”

The effort to conceal details about the oppression of Uyghurs is being extended to the families of detainees as well. New documents reveal the extreme pressure being placed on families to keep silent.

Bitter Winter obtained a copy of a Notice to the Relatives of Detainees being sent to families in Xinjiang. The Notice informs relatives that, “Students’ [a euphemism referring to prisoners] families must comply with confidentiality requirements. They are not allowed to report, in person or online, any information that contradicts the policies of the Party and the government.” The Notice also stipulates that “students’ families must comply with national laws and regulations; must not believe or spread rumors; and must participate in group activities, obey the Party, be grateful to the Party, and follow the Party.”

Notice to the Relatives of Detainees 1
Notice to the Relatives of Detainees
Notice to the Relatives of Detainees 2
Notice to the Relatives of Detainees
Notice to the Relatives of Detainees 3
Notice to the Relatives of Detainees

Families are made responsible for the fate of their loved ones. A comprehensive score is assigned to each family, based on the family’s compliance with the Notice. That score is then used to determine when the student-prisoner “graduates.” In order to protect the prisoners and secure their release, relatives of detainees must actively support the government, in word and in deed.

As Bitter Winter has previously reported, the CCP authorities are transferring hundreds of thousands of detained Uyghurs to prisons in other provinces, in order to make the mass detention and re-education program less visible. According to sources, as many as 500,000 Uyghur prisoners serving long sentences may be transferred.

Foreign media has reported that Xinjiang authorities are removing evidence from “transformation through education” camps in anticipation of international inspectors’ arrival. Officials are also said to be forcing local residents to “memorize and write, from memory, government-provided answers to possible questions that an inspection team could ask.” Some residents have been forced to practice Uyghur songs and dances, and to feign a joyous atmosphere to give the impression that “no activity contrary to human rights exists at the camps,” and that “local residents are living and working in peace and contentment.”

Reported by Li Zaili

Tagged With: Human Rights, Muslim Uyghurs, Re-Education Camps

Li Zaili Profile picture
Li Zaili

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Poetry Against Mass Atrocities: Poets Compare Notes on Jewish, Uyghur, and Other Genocides

    Poetry Against Mass Atrocities: Poets Compare Notes on Jewish, Uyghur, and Other Genocides

  • After 26 Years, Uyghurs Remember the Ghulja Massacre

    After 26 Years, Uyghurs Remember the Ghulja Massacre

  • Ahmadis Defend Human Rights—Not for Themselves Only

    Ahmadis Defend Human Rights—Not for Themselves Only

  • The Urumqi Fire Was State Terror: The European Parliament Got It Right

    The Urumqi Fire Was State Terror: The European Parliament Got It Right

Keep Reading

  • The US-China Balloon Crisis: A Uyghur View
    The US-China Balloon Crisis: A Uyghur View

    Writing in Bitter Winter last year, I prophesied—without a crystal ball—that something similar would happen. And worse incidents in the future, too.

  • Della Miles Sings “East Turkistan”: An Artist Denounces the Uyghur Genocide
    Della Miles Sings “East Turkistan”: An Artist Denounces the Uyghur Genocide

    The American singer started a “One minute” campaign calling the world to protest on behalf of a land where “torture never ends.”

  • Tai Ji Men: A Human Rights Case
    Tai Ji Men: A Human Rights Case

    On United Nations Human Rights Day, international scholars and human rights activists called for a solution of the Tai Ji Men case.

  • Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back
    Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back

    A Muslim delegation visited Xinjiang and reported all is well there. Uyghur throughout the world are denouncing its statement as Goebbels-style propaganda.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Blaming the Victims: The Hamburg Shooting and the Jehovah’s Witnesses by Massimo Introvigne
  • The Donnie Yen Fiasco: A Uyghur View by Rebiya Kadeer
  • Abduxaliq Uyghur, 1901–1933: Uyghurs Remember Their Beheaded Poet by Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur
  • The “Buddhist and Taoist Clergy Database,” Another CCP Imposture by He Yuyan
  • The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy by Zhou Kexin
  • Second-Generation Unification Church Believers Discriminated in Japan. 1. A Tale of Two Petitions by Masumi Fukuda
  • Second-Generation Unification Church Believers Discriminated in Japan. 3. Media Slander Leads to Discrimination by Masumi Fukuda

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY