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: Voice Biometric Collection Threatens Privacy - Police, AI Giant Collaboration in Legal Gray Area
The Chinese government is collecting “voice pattern” samples of individuals to establish a national voice biometric database, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities are collaborating with iFlytek, a Chinese company that produces 80 percent of all speech recognition technology in the country, to develop a pilot surveillance system that can automatically identify targeted voices in phone conversations. “The Chinese government has been collecting the voice patterns of tens of thousands of people with little transparency about the program or laws regulating who can be targeted or how that information is going to be used,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “Authorities can easily misuse that data in a country with a long history of unchecked surveillance and retaliation against critics.”
Chen Quanguo: The Strongman Behind Beijing’s Securitization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang
Over the last year, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary Chen Quanguo has dramatically increased the police presence in Xinjiang by advertising over 90,000 new police and security-related positions. This soldier-turned-politician is little known outside of China, but within China he has gained a reputation as an ethnic policy innovator, pioneering a range of new methods for securing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule over Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in western China.
China Runs Region-wide Re-education Camps in Xinjiang for Uyghurs And Other Muslims
Thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are being held in re-education camps without contact with their families under a policy designed to counter extremism in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, local officials told RFA’s Uyghur Service.
Free Xinjiang ‘Political Education’ Detainees - Muslim Minorities Held for Months in Unlawful Facilities
The Chinese government should immediately free people held in unlawful “political education” centers in Xinjiang and shut them down, Human Rights Watch said today. Since about April 2017, the authorities have forcibly detained thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities at these centers, where they are subjected to propaganda promoting Chinese identity.
China’s Dystopian Push to Revolutionize Surveillance
As part of a new multimillion-dollar project in Xinjiang, the Chinese government is attempting to “build a fortress city with technologies.” If this sounds Orwellian, that’s because it is. According to the Sina online news portal, the project is supposed to strengthen the authorities’ hands against unexpected social unrest. Using “big data” from various sources, including the railway system and visitors’ systems in private residential compounds, its ultimate aim is to “predict … individuals and vehicles posing heightened risks” to public safety.
Xinjiang Authorities Ban Books by Uyghur Former Chairman of Region
Authorities in the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region have banned the sale of books by the region’s first chairman, an ethnic Uyghur, despite his support for the ruling Communist Party.
Egypt: Don’t Deport Uyghurs to China - Muslim Minority Face Jail, Torture if Forcibly Returned
Egyptian authorities should not deport dozens of detained Chinese Muslim Uyghurs to China, where they are at serious risk of arbitrary detention and torture, Human Rights Watch said today. Since July 3, 2017, authorities have arrested at least 62 Uyghurs who were living in Egypt without informing them of the grounds for their detention, and have denied them access to lawyers and their families. China has in recent months demanded the return of Uyghur students living abroad as it cracks down on the Muslim minority, accusing the community of “separatism” and “religious extremism.”
An American agency denounces the treatment of Muslims in China
An American agency denounces the treatment of Muslims in China. At a time when pressing matters of finance and geopolitics dominate the diplomatic agenda, issues of religious freedom hardly ever surface in exchanges between the world’s powerful countries. High-level debates about freedom of belief are so relatively unusual these days that they stand out.
Egyptian Police Detain Uighurs and Deport Them to China
At least 12 Chinese nationals were deported and put on a flight to China late Thursday, and 22 more were detained for immediate deportation, three Egyptian aviation officials said.
The Return of the Show Trial: China’s Televised “Confessions”
This article investigates the recent wave of staged confessions in China in historical perspective. Currently, the authorities “disappear,” detain, and parade people, both Chinese and foreigners, on state television, forcing them to incriminate themselves by making abject confessions prior to legal proceedings. This is a clear break with years of efforts to build the rule of law in China. It also reverses multiple solemn declarations to prohibit police torture and forced confessions, both longstanding practices in China.
China is Creating an Unprecedented 'Security State' in Xinjiang
Beijing is busily building a “security state” in Xinjiang, according to one scholar on Uyghur affairs. This month, amid reports of heightened violence in Xinjiang, China’s push has seen tightened controls on movement and prompted a large, showy state-sponsored police demonstration against terror in Xinjiang’s regional capital.
China is touting its protection of human rights in a Muslim-majority region riven by violence
China put out a policy paper today on human rights in the Muslim-heavy Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the Chinese government has been cracking down extensively in recent years. The report, titled “Human Rights in Xinjiang—Development and Progress” declares that “Before 1949, when People’s Republic of China was founded, people in Xinjiang had been suffering from foreign invasions’ influences, ripped by the feudal society and suppressed by privileged religious stratum.” Since then, it goes on to say, China has provided the foundations for “people with different ethnicities in Xinjiang to truly enjoy human rights.”
Police DNA Database Threatens Privacy
China’s police are collecting DNA from individuals for a nationally searchable database without oversight, transparency, or privacy protections, Human Rights Watch said today. Evidence suggests that the regional government in Xinjiang, an ethnic minority region with a history of government repression, intends to accelerate the collection and indexing of DNA.
The extraordinary ways in which China humiliates Muslims - Bans on “abnormal” beards and even the name “Muhammad”
Chinese officials describe the far western province of Xinjiang as a “core area” in the vast swathe of territory covered by the country’s grandiose “Belt and Road Initiative” to boost economic ties with Central Asia and regions beyond. They hope that wealth generated by the scheme will help to make Xinjiang more stable—for years it has been plagued by separatist violence which China says is being fed by global jihadism. But the authorities are not waiting. In recent months they have intensified their efforts to stifle the Islamic identity of Xinjiang’s ethnic Uighurs, fearful that any public display of their religious belief could morph into militancy.
China Bans Many Muslim Baby Names in Xinjiang - Absurd Edict Part of Growing Restrictions on Uyghurs
According to media reports, Xinjiang authorities have recently banned dozens of names with religious connotations common to Muslims around the world, such as Saddam and Medina, on the basis that they could “exaggerate religious fervor.” Children with banned names will not be able to obtain a “hukou,” or household registration, essential for accessing public school and other social services. This is just the latest in a slew of new regulations restricting religious freedom in the name of countering “religious extremism.” On April 1, Xinjiang authorities imposed new rules prohibiting the wearing of “abnormal” beards or veils in public places, and imposing punishments for refusing to watch state TV or radio programs.
Imagining Re-Engineered Muslims in Northwest China
A common sense form of Uyghur morality is now being read as a kind of religious extremism.
Xinjiang Police Search Uyghur Homes For ‘Illegal Items’
Authorities in Xinjiang have begun searching the homes of mostly Muslim ethnic Uyghurs for “illegal items,” including religious materials and attire, according to official sources.
Terror threats transform China's Uighur heartland into security state
Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China’s ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs. In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armored paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.
Xinjiang’s Rapidly Evolving Security State
Since the July 5, 2009 riots in the regional capital of Urumqi, thousands have died in violent clashes between the Muslim Uyghur minority and the Han-dominated Party-state. In response, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has built a multi-tiered security state with, among other components, the recruitment of nearly 90,000 new police officers and a 356 percent increase in the public security budget. According to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xinjiang is now the “frontline” in China’s battle against “terrorism,” and consequently a testing ground for new policing and surveillance methods.
China’s Communist Party hardens rhetoric on Islam
China’s ruling Communist Party has hardened its rhetoric on Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings about the spectre of global religious “extremism” seeping into the country, and the need to protect traditional Chinese identity. Sharhat Ahan, a top party official in Xinjiang, on Sunday became the latest official from a predominantly Muslim region to warn political leaders gathered in Beijing that the “international anti-terror situation” is destabilising China.