• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
  • WORLD DEMOCRACY
  • POLITICAL ART
  • more
    • election technology
    • money politics
    • political dissidents
    • THIRD PARTY
      • third party central
      • green party
      • justice party
      • libertarian party
    • voting methods
  • DC INFO
    • author central
    • about
    • contact
    • privacy policy

Democracy Chronicles

In China, Big Brother Moves Into Uighur Homes

By DC Editors - December 3, 2018 1 Comment

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

In China, Big Brother Moves Into Uighur Homes
From Voice of America

The two women in the photograph were smiling, but Halmurat Idris knew something was terribly wrong.

One was his 39-year-old sister; standing at her side was an elderly woman Idris did not know. Their grins were tight-lipped, mirthless. Her sister had posted the picture on a social media account along with a caption punctuated by a smiley face.

“Look, I have a Han Chinese mother now!” his sister wrote.

Idris knew instantly: The old woman was a spy, sent by the Chinese government to infiltrate his family.

Spies in their homes

There are many like her. According to the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, as of the end of September, 1.1 million local government workers have been deployed to ethnic minorities’ living rooms, dining areas and Muslim prayer spaces, not to mention at weddings, funerals and other occasions once considered intimate and private.

All this is taking place in China’s far west region of Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have long reported discrimination at the hands of the country’s majority Han Chinese.

While government notices about the “Pair Up and Become Family” program portray it as an affectionate cultural exchange, Uighurs living in exile in Turkey said their loved ones saw the campaign as a chilling intrusion into the only place that they once felt safe.

They believe the program is aimed at coercing Uighurs into living secular lives like the Han majority. Anything diverging from the party’s prescribed lifestyle can be viewed by authorities as a sign of potential extremism.

Stifling surveillance

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Uighur homeland has been blanketed with stifling surveillance, from armed checkpoints on street corners to facial-recognition-equipped CCTV cameras steadily surveying passers-by. Now, Uighurs say, they must live under the watchful eye of the ruling Communist Party even inside their own homes.

“The government is trying to destroy that last protected space in which Uighurs have been able to maintain their identity,” said Joanne Smith Finley, an ethnographer at England’s Newcastle University.

The Associated Press spoke to five Uighurs living in Istanbul who shared the experiences of their family members in Xinjiang who have had to host Han Chinese civil servants. These accounts are based on prior communications with their family members, the majority of whom have since cut off contact because Uighurs can be punished for speaking to people abroad.

Uighurs abroad said their loved ones were constantly on edge in their own homes, knowing that any misstep — a misplaced Quran, a carelessly spoken word — could lead to detention or worse. In the presence of these faux relatives, their family members could not pray or wear religious garbs, and the cadres were privy to their every move.

The thought of it — and the sight of his sister, the old woman and their false smiles — made Idris queasy.

“I wanted to throw up,” said the 49-year-old petroleum engineer, shaking his head in disgust.

“The moment I saw the old woman, I thought, ‘Ugh, this person is our enemy.’ If your enemy became your mother, think about it — how would you feel?”

Internment camps

Tensions between Muslim minorities and Han Chinese have bubbled over in recent years, resulting in violent attacks pegged to Uighur separatists and a fierce government crackdown on broadly defined “extremism” that has placed as many as 1 million Muslims in internment camps, according to estimates by experts and a human rights group.

Uighurs say the omnipresent threat of being sent to one of these centers, which are described as political indoctrination camps by former detainees, looms large in their relatives’ minds when they are forced to welcome party members into their homes.

Last December, Xinjiang authorities organized a “Becoming Family Week,” which placed more than 1 million cadres in minority households. Government reports on the program gushed about the warm “family reunions,” as public servants and Uighurs shared meals and even beds.

Becoming Family Week turned out to be a test run for a standardized homestay program. The Xinjiang United Front Work Department said in February that government workers should live with their assigned families every two months, for five days at a time.

Not all “Become Family” pairings involve Han Chinese visitors. A Uighur cadre named Gu Li said she regularly pays visits to a Uighur household, staying three to five days at a time.

“We’ve already started calling each other family,” she said in a telephone interview from Xinjiang. “China’s 56 ethnic groups are all one family.”

Gu said civil servants of many ethnicities, Uighur, Han and Kazakh, participate in the program.

All government employees in the region are required to conduct such visits in order to better understand villagers’ needs, according to Gu: “Because we’re always sitting in our offices, we don’t know what they really need. Only through penetrating the masses can we truly serve them.”

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Filed Under: International Democracy Tagged With: Asia, China, Dictatorships, George Orwell, Spying and Privacy, Uyghur People

About DC Editors

We are your source for news on the all important effort to establish and strengthen democracy across the globe. Our international team with dozens of independent authors are your gateway into the raging struggle for free and fair elections on every continent with a focus on election reform in the United States. See our Facebook Page and also follow us on Twitter @demchron.

Some highlighted Democracy Chronicles topics

Africa American Corruption American Local Elections American State Elections Asia Capitalism and Big Business Celebrity Politics China Democracy Charity Democracy Protests Democrats Dictatorships Education Election History Election Methods Election Security Election Transparency Europe Internet and Democracy Journalism and Free Speech Middle East Minority Voting Rights Money Politics New York City and State Elections Political Artwork Political Dissidents Political Lobbying Redistricting Republicans Russia Socialism and Labor Social Media and Democracy South America Spying and Privacy Supreme Court Syria Third Party Voter Access Voter ID Voter Registration Voter Turnout Voting Technology Women Voting Rights Worldwide Worldwide Corruption

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. goldcrown says

    December 4, 2018 at 9:46 pm

    This is a great place to learn about the Uighurs whom are rarely mentioned in the Mainstream Media. In the Mainstream Media we hear about Muslims being bad people hellbent on terrorizing the West. We hear very little about Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians regardless of religion, gender or sexual orientation.
    China persecutes Uighurs & other minority groups as much as it persecutes Tibetans.

    China wants to eradicate their customs, culture & languages & replace them with that of the Han Chinese.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home | ALL NEWS | WORLD | In China, Big Brother Moves Into Uighur Homes

Primary Sidebar

donate button

Seeds of Discontent

By Jack Jones

There is a stirring in cities that have been decimated by corporate America and where their profit-driven relocation has caused pain of staggering consequence.

America After Trump

By Jenny Oak Tree

Our country must grieve and we must understand the trauma that has been created by Trumpism. Only then can the United States rise again.

democracy chronicles newsletter

DC AUTHORS

Teaching Voting Theory With a Card-Based Voting Game

By Steve Cobb

This uniquely inventive new game’s name ‘Concurrence’ is a play on words: it means “agreement” in English and “competition” in Russian.

U

By Aydasara Ortega

Data governance surfaces as key terrain on which to regulate firms engaged in datafication by responding to the injustices of informational capitalism.

On The Dynamics of Abortion. And Argentina.

By David Anderson, J.D.

There’s big news from Argentina lately. By a fair margin abortion was finally legalized there last month after decades of grassroots activism.

An Expat American in the Middle East Discusses Trump Concerns

By Steve Schneider

Democracy Chronicles author Steve Schneider interviews ex-pat American Jason Meursault who shares his overseas perspective on the Capitol riot.

Why Trump Should be Impeached

By Jack Jones

Trump’s tenure was a reign of terror. The 6 Jan insurrection is ground for Senate impeachment to prevent him from causing further damage to our democracy.

On Approval Voting and the National Popular Vote

By Steve Cobb

Though written without regard for alternative voting methods, maybe the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is OK.

Is Giuliani a Speech-Maker or a Criminal Instigator?

By Steve Schneider

Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s personal lawyer. He has spoken in two rallies that became criminal riots, including the Jan 6, 2021, mob attack on The Capitol.

MORE FROM OUR AUTHORS

VISIT OUR POLITICAL ART SECTION:

dc political art

DEMOCRACY CULTURE

Exorcisms Aimed at Overturning Election

Priest Ousted After Exorcisms Aimed at Overturning Election

Livestreamed exorcisms aimed at rooting out what he falsely claimed was widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Swiss Preschoolers Learn Democracy

Swiss Preschoolers Learn Democracy in ‘Citizenship Project’

Swiss preschoolers line up to cast their ballots in a vote that will shape lives in the make-believe village where they call the shots.

Protest Art from Around the World

Foundation Publishes Protest Art from Around the World

Art has been a powerful medium of protest and creative expression to expose the deception and social bankruptcy of tyranny.

Protecting Californian Elections

How Bad Jokes Complicated Protecting Californian Elections

Public records show California’s scattershot cybersecurity approach ensnared some people who say they were joking.

MORE CULTURE

VISIT OUR US DEMOCRACY SECTION:

American Democracy