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:
Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage
This report examines the state-sponsored campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs through coerced inter-ethnic marriages between Han men and Uyghur women.
Chinese use Muslim holiday for propaganda purposes, celebrating with Uyghurs
China’s state media reported on huiju work teams of local cadres who “visited” Uyghurs bearing gifts of food and who helped them work in their fields in celebration of the holiday. State media also released a video of Uyghurs dancing in what some observers said were staged performances.
WATCH: Undercover in the Most Dystopian Place in the World
A reporter poses as a tourist to gain unprecedented access to China’s Xinjiang region, where at least a million Uighurs have been detained in massive internment camps.
‘Saved’ by state terror: Gendered violence and propaganda in Xinjiang
The ongoing atrocities targeting Turkic Muslim peoples in Xinjiang are, in many forms, gendered violence. As the “People’s War on Terror” campaign escalates, Han officials and settlers are removing Turkic Muslim men who they perceive as threats to “security” and “safety,” emptying out a clear path for Han settlers to insert their presence onto Uyghur and Kazakh homelands. This comes at the expense of the women who remain.
Securitization, insecurity and conflict in contemporary Xinjiang: has PRC counter-terrorism evolved into state terror?
This issue first provides an overview of the programme of 'de-extremification' and mass internment in Xinjiang since early 2017. It then situates this development against the ‘ideological turn’ in Chinese Communist Party policy under President Xi Jinping, highlighting the new emphasis on stability maintenance and ideational governance. It also explores experiences of (in)security in Uyghur communities in- and outside of Xinjiang in the era of internment to consider how far PRC counter-terrorism initiatives have now evolved into state terror.
An Inside Look at China's Reeducation Camps
A million Muslims are being held in reeducation camps in northwestern China, where they are forced to learn Mandarin and sing communist songs. Ex-prisoners who have escaped across the border to Kazakhstan talk about their imprisonment.
China’s Government Has Ordered a Million Citizens to Occupy Uighur Homes. Here’s What They Think They’re Doing.
Little attention has been paid to the mobilization of more than a million Chinese civilians to aid the military and police in their repressive campaign by occupying the homes of Xinjiang’s Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: Transformation
On the edge of a desert in far western China, an imposing building sits behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Inside, hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a high-pressure indoctrination program.
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.
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.