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:
Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression & Mass Imprisonment
This report explores how China’s systematic, large-scale imprisonment of Uyghurs not only amounts to a crime against humanity, but also dangerous lawfare at mass scale.
Xinjiang Official Figures Reveal Higher Prisoner Count
The Chinese government has used its justice system to sentence and imprison an estimated half-million people during the brutal crackdown in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. Research indicates that the total number of people wrongfully imprisoned is much higher than official figures.
China’s Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App
This report provides a detailed description and analysis of a mobile app that police and other officials use to communicate with the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), one of the main systems Chinese authorities use for mass surveillance in Xinjiang. The findings provide an unprecedented window into how mass surveillance actually works in Xinjiang, because the IJOP system is central to a larger ecosystem of social monitoring and control in the region.
Thoroughly Reforming Them Towards a Healthy Heart Attitude: China's Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang.
This paper investigates publicly available evidence of China’s political re-education facilities from official sources, including government websites, media reports and other Chinese internet sources.
Criminal Arrests in Xinjiang Account for 21% of China’s Total in 2017
Under the pretext of “counter-terrorism,” “anti-separatism,” and “de-extremism” efforts, Chinese authorities have greatly increased the number of arrests and prosecutions in Xinjiang.
Visiting Officials Occupy Homes in Muslim Region - ‘Becoming Family’ Campaign Intensifies Repression in Xinjiang
Since 2016, Xinjiang authorities have sent hundreds of thousands of CCP cadres from government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and public institutions to regularly visit and surveil citizens. Every two months, about 110,000 officials visit homes with a view toward “fostering ethnic harmony”. This “Becoming Family” campaign has been greatly expanded in recent months. In December 2017, Xinjiang authorities mobilized more than a million cadres to spend a week living in homes primarily in Xinjiang’s countryside.
China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region - Predictive Policing Program Flags Individuals for Investigations, Detentions
Chinese authorities are building and deploying a predictive policing program based on big data analysis in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The program aggregates data about people – often without their knowledge – and flags those it deems potentially threatening to officials. According to interviewees, some of those targeted are detained and sent to extralegal “political education centers” where they are held indefinitely without charge or trial, and can be subject to abuse.
In Western China, Thought Police Instill Fear
Nobody knows what happened to the Uighur student after he returned to China from Egypt and was taken away by police. Not his neighbors, not his classmates, not his mother.
Charting the Course of Uyghur Unrest
This article argues that the locations and types of violent Uyghur unrest were influenced by a combination of Chinese government policies and the political geography of Xinjiang.
Uyghur Leader Turns to Chinese People
Uyghur exile leader Rebiya Kadeer has appealed to the Chinese people to help Uyghurs in Xinjiang push for self-determination as Beijing launched a "strike hard" campaign in the wake of violent attacks in the region.
Renewed Strike Hard Campaign Ordered in Xinjiang
A senior Chinese official is urging authorities in the largely Muslim Xinjiang to prepare for danger and renew their “strike hard” campaign against separatism, as the northwestern region marks 50 years under Chinese rule this week.
Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: a critical assessment
Since the events of 9-11 and Chinese attempts to link Uyghur separatism to international jihadist groups, a steady flow of reports from the international media—as well as official PRC releases—have given the impression of an imminent separatist and terrorist crisis in the Xinjiang region. This study surveys open sources as well as less easily accessible Chinese documents on violent separatist and terrorist events and groups.
Criminalizing Ethnicity: Political Repression in Xinjiang
This summary of a new report by HRIC and Human Rights Watch examines how the Chinese government has used international campaigns against terrorism as a pretext to crack down on any expression by members of the Muslim minority of Xinjiang to assert their ethnic character or promote an independent state.
Uighurs fleeing persecution as China wages its “war on terror”
The first section of this report gives an overview of the human rights situation in the XUAR. It describes the cases of two Uighur prisoners of conscience who continue to be imprisoned, despite repeated calls for their release from other governments, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations. The second section describes the plight of Uighurs in other countries, including those who apply for asylum.
China’s anti-terrorism legislation and repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region
This report describes the new anti-terrorism provisions in Chinese law and Amnesty International’s concerns about these provisions and the crackdown against “terrorist, separatist and illegal religious activities” currently underway in the XUAR.