{"id":907,"date":"2021-10-22T12:59:57","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T09:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/?p=907"},"modified":"2021-10-22T12:59:58","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T09:59:58","slug":"report-documents-extensive-grassroots-policing-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/report-documents-extensive-grassroots-policing-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT DOCUMENTS EXTENSIVE GRASSROOTS POLICING OF UYGHURS IN XINJIANG"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RFA<\/a>. 20 October 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Below is an article published by RFA<\/a>. Photo:AFP.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scores of Chinese government bodies are engaged in an elaborate whole-of-government campaign of repression targeting Muslim Uyghurs in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, according to report published this week by an Australian think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The report by the independent, nonpartisan Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) details the deep involvement of Chinese government agencies in a systematic effort to suppress the Uyghurs and their culture that has drawn accusations of genocide in several Western capitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report titled \u201cThe Architecture of Repression: Unpacking Xinjiang\u2019s Governance\u201d is the latest document presenting evidence of the ramping up since 2014 of systematic human rights abuses of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors of the 80-page report reviewed thousands of Chinese-language sources, including leaked police records and government budget documents never before published, to map and analyze the mechanisms used by the Chinese government in the XUAR from 2014 to 2021, a period of mounting repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe project maps out and analyzes Xinjiang\u2019s vast and opaque bureaucratic structure that has operationalized the party-state\u2019s war on Uyghurs,\u201d tweeted report co-author Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, an Australian policy analyst and journalist known for exposing human rights abuses in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cXinjiang\u2019s community-based control mechanisms are part of a national push to enhance grassroots governance, which seeks to mobilize the masses to help stamp out dissent and instability and to increase the party\u2019s domination in the lowest reaches of society,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research \u2014 funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office \u2014 sheds light on the implementation of five policies, including one the authors call the \u201cTrinity\u201d mechanism, to penetrate the everyday lives of Uyghurs in the XUAR at the grassroots level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduced at the beginning of a 2014 counterterrorism campaign in the XUAR and later implemented throughout the region, the \u2018Trinity\u2019 mechanism ensures that neighborhood or village committee officials, police officers, and teams of officials who visit or occupy Uyghur homes co-manage every neighborhood and village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Xinjiang, the neighborhood or village committee is the principal arbitrator of the re-education processes,\u201d the report says. \u201cDuring the Re-education Campaign, the Trinity mechanism holds at least two daily meetings: a \u2018morning dispatch\u2019 to assign home visits and \u2018investigations\u2019, and an \u2018evening evaluation\u2019 to decide what actions to take in response to those \u2018investigations\u2019, including whether any individuals should be sent away for re-education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of internment camps since 2017. Beijing says the camps are vocational training centers designed to combat extremism and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Uyghurs living in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn some cases, individuals are stopped at checkpoints and interrogated at local police stations by intelligence officers before being sent to the camps,\u201d says the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen they\u2019re released, they return to the Neighborhood Committee\u2019s \u2018management and control,\u2019\u201d it says, referring to the organization responsible for local party control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four other policies are the use of police substations in Xinjiang neighborhoods and villagers; a grid management system in which a local manager and other staff report potential problems in their communities; the compulsory Fanghuiju program in which majority Han Chinese officials and sometimes civilians are mobilized to visit or occupy the homes of Uyghur families; and a program under which neighborhoods grids are divided into micro-units of 10 households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking \u2018enemy movements\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xinjiang\u2019s community-based control mechanisms are part of a national push to enhance grassroots control, which seeks to mobilise the masses to help stamp out dissent and instability and to increase the party\u2019s domination of the lowest reaches of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report cites the example of 18-year-old Anayit Abliz from Shuimogou district in the XUAR\u2019s capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), who was caught using a file-sharing app in 2017 and was interned in a detention camp to await a sentence hearing by his neighborhood committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaked police records show that during this time, committee officials closely monitored the teenager\u2019s family members, going so far as to visit them six times in a single week in February 2018, and recording their daily activities in a series of reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ASPI report says many Uyghurs come under suspicion after they are flagged by the Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC), the Chinese Communist Party body responsible for the country\u2019s law-and-order system, including the XUAR\u2019s mass detention program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PLAC manages the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), a predictive policing system that officials use to assign millions of investigations, through the Counterterrorism and Stability Maintenance Command, a powerful new party organ born of the re-education campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police records from Urumqi indicate that the PLAC sends push notifications of \u201cmicro clues\u201d via the IJOP to neighborhood committees and police when irregularities are detected, such as Uyghurs having an unexpected visitor in their homes, driving cars that do not belong to them, receiving overseas phone calls, or using file-sharing apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn police reports, these often innocuous acts are described as \u2018enemy movements\u2019 or \u2018important intelligence,\u2019\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilshat Rishit, spokesman of the World Uyghur Congress based in Germany, said that ASPI\u2019s report is another document that \u201cexposes China\u2019s horrific treatment and mass surveillance of the Uyghur people before the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that China cannot hide the fact that it\u2019s committing genocide and crimes against humanity towards the Uyghur people in East Turkestan,\u201d he told RFA, using the Uyghurs\u2019 preferred name for the XUAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn light of the new report, we urge the international community to take proactive and effective measures, including sanctions, to hold Chinese officials responsible for their crimes and stop the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity,\u201d
Dilshat said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sheer lies\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement issued Tuesday in response to the report, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an international cross-party group of legislators, called on democratic states \u201cto take urgent, coordinated action to protect Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities\u201d in the XUAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFurther, we request ASPI to share with IPAC, governments, and other relevant bodies the list of culpable officials referenced in their report so that sanctions can be pursued where appropriate,\u201d IPAC said. \u201cThose responsible for perpetrating these abuses must be held to account for their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has repeatedly denounced reports by ASPI, calling a 2020 report on the destruction of mosques \u201cpure slander\u201d and calling the credibility of the think tank into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, the day before the report was issued, China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the \u201cso-called \u2018oppression\u2019 and \u2018forced labor\u2019\u201d of the Uyghurs in the XUAR mentioned by U.S. President Joe Biden at the University of Connecticut on Oct. 15, were \u201csheer lies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cXinjiang now enjoys social stability, economic development, solidarity among ethnic groups and harmony among religions,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople of all ethnic groups live a happy and fulfilling life, with all rights and interests prescribed by law fully guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe so-called human rights issues in Xinjiang are an outright political conspiracy,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cThe true intention is to undermine prosperity and stability in Xinjiang and contain China\u2019s development.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFA. 20 October 2021 Below is an article published by RFA. Photo:AFP. Scores of Chinese government bodies are engaged in an elaborate whole-of-government campaign of repression targeting Muslim Uyghurs in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, according to report published this week by an<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}