All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
China's Decimation of Uyghur Minds
Academics, journalists and rights groups have recently documented the accelerating repression of the 11-million strong Uyghur population living in Xinjiang. The burgeoning security apparatus, ubiquitous surveillance, gathering of biometrics, the use of big data, and similar technological features of Chinese authoritarianism have invited comparisons of Xinjiang to an open-air prison or to the dystopian visions captured in Orwell’s 1984 or Zamyatin’s We.
Islam in Xinjiang: “De-Extremification” or Violation of Religious Space?
The CCP claims it must halt the “penetration of extremification” within society, as outlined in the XUAR Regulations on De-extremification (2017). Yet the true aim of China’s surveillance state in Xinjiang seems rather to be to erase the religious (Islamic) identity of Uyghur communities, via a racist system of cultural cleansing. Intrusive religious policing practised in Xinjiang since 2012 has accelerated since the arrival of new Party Secretary, Chen Quanguo, in 2016.