Summary

The training has only one purpose: to learn laws and regulations…to eradicate from the mind thoughts about religious extremism and violent terrorism, and to cure ideological diseases. If the education is not going well, we will continue to provide free education, until the students achieve satisfactory results and graduate smoothly.

—Speech by Chinese Communist Youth League Xinjiang Branch, March 2017

[W]hat they want is to force us to assimilate, to identify with the country, such that, in the future, the idea of Uyghur will be in name only, but without its meaning.

—Tohti, who left Xinjiang in 2017, March 2018

The Chinese government has long carried out repressive policies against the Turkic Muslim peoples in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China. These efforts have been dramatically scaled up since late 2016, when Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo relocated from the Tibet Autonomous Region to assume leadership of Xinjiang.

This report presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and details the systemic and increasingly pervasive controls on daily life there. These rampant abuses violate fundamental rights to freedom of expression, religion, and privacy, and protections from torture and unfair trials. More broadly, governmental controls over day-to-day life in Xinjiang primarily affect ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities, in violation of international law’s prohibitions against discrimination.

This report is primarily based on interviews with 58 former residents of Xinjiang, including 5 former detainees and 38 relatives of detainees. Among the interviewees, 19 people had left Xinjiang since January 2017. Interviewees come from all 14 prefectures in Xinjiang.

In May 2014, China launched its “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” (严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动) in Xinjiang. Since then, the number of people formally arrested has leaped three-fold compared to the previous five-year period, according to official figures and estimates by the nongovernmental organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders. The government has held people in pretrial detention centers (看守所) and prisons (监狱), both of which are formal facilities, and in political education camps, which have no basis under Chinese law. Those detained have been denied due process rights and suffered torture and other ill-treatment.

International media attention on Xinjiang has thus far focused on the political education camps. Although the Chinese government provides no public information on the number of detainees in these camps, credible estimates place the number in these camps at around one million.[1] Within these secretive facilities, those held are forced to undergo political indoctrination for days, months, and even over a year.

It is not uncommon to find Uyghurs, particularly from Hotan and Kashgar in southern Xinjiang, – perceived by the authorities as anti-government hotspots – reporting that half or more of their immediate family members are in a mix of political education camps, pre-trial detention, and prison. For example, an interviewee said her husband, his 4 brothers, and their 12 nephews – that is, all the men in the family – have been detained in political education camps since 2017.

There have been reports of deaths in the political education camps, raising concerns about physical and psychological abuse, as well as stress from poor conditions, overcrowding, and indefinite confinement. While basic medical care is available, people are held even when they have serious illnesses or are elderly; there are also children in their teens, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and people with disabilities. Former detainees reported suicide attempts and harsh punishments for disobedience in the facilities.

Chinese officials have denied that abuses have occurred; instead they characterize these camps as “vocational education and employment training centers” for “criminals involved in minor offenses.” However, they permit no independent monitoring of these facilities from the UN, human rights organizations, or the media.

In recent years the Chinese government has devoted enormous financial, human, and technical resources for social control in Xinjiang. Authorities have hired tens of thousands additional security personnel while building numerous “convenience” police stations and checkpoints in the region. They have closely monitored people’s familial and social networks as indicators of their level of political trustworthiness. The government detains people and subjects them to greater levels of controls not only based on their own behavior or beliefs, but also those of their family members – a form of collective punishment contrary to international human rights law.

Perhaps the most innovative – and disturbing – of the repressive measures in Xinjiang is the government’s use of high-tech mass surveillance systems. Xinjiang authorities conduct compulsory mass collection of biometric data, such as voice samples and DNA, and use artificial intelligence and big data to identify, profile, and track everyone in Xinjiang. The authorities have envisioned these systems as a series of “filters,” picking out people with certain behavior or characteristics that they believe indicate a threat to the Communist Party’s rule in Xinjiang. These systems have also enabled authorities to implement fine-grained control, subjecting people to differentiated restrictions depending on their perceived levels of “trustworthiness.”

Authorities have sought to justify harsh treatment in the name of maintaining stability and security in Xinjiang, and to “strike at” those deemed terrorists and extremists in a “precise” and “in-depth” manner. Xinjiang officials claim the root of these problems is the “problematic ideas” of Turkic Muslims. These ideas include what authorities describe as extreme religious dogmas, but also any non-Han Chinese sense of identity, be it Islamic, Turkic, Uyghur, or Kazakh. Authorities insist that such beliefs and affinities must be “corrected” or “eradicated.”

During the past five years, a number of violent incidents attributed to Uyghur perpetrators have been reported in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, and there have been reports of Uyghur fighters joining armed extremist groups abroad. The government has imposed far greater restrictions on Uyghurs than on other ethnic minorities. However, ethnic Kazakhs living mostly in northern Xinjiang have, since late 2016, been increasingly targeted under the Strike Hard Campaign.

Still, the Strike Hard Campaign’s broad mandate to punish and control Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang because of their identities cannot be justified as part of the state’s responsibility to ensure public security.

In many ways, the treatment of all Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang – those held inside detention facilities and those ostensibly free – bears disturbing similarities. Inside political education camps, detainees are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese, sing praises of the Chinese Communist Party, and memorize rules applicable primarily to Turkic Muslims. Those outside the camps are required to attend weekly, or even daily, Chinese flag-raising ceremonies, political indoctrination meetings, and at times Mandarin classes. Detainees are told they may not be allowed to leave the camps unless they have learned over 1,000 Chinese characters or are otherwise deemed to have become loyal Chinese subjects; Turkic Muslims living outside are subjected to movement restrictions ranging from house arrest, to being barred from leaving their locales, to being prevented from leaving the country. Inside, people are punished for peacefully practicing religion; outside, the government’s religious restrictions are so stringent that it has effectively outlawed Islam. Inside, people are closely watched by guards and are barred from contacting their families and friends. Those living in their homes are watched by their neighbors, officials, and tech-enabled mass surveillance systems, and are not allowed to contact those in foreign countries.

Xinjiang’s Strike Hard Campaign has also had implications abroad. The Xinjiang authorities have made foreign ties a punishable offense, targeting people with connections to an official list of “26 sensitive countries,” including Kazakhstan, Turkey, Malaysia, and Indonesia. People who have been to these countries, have families, or otherwise communicate with people there, have been interrogated, detained, and even tried and imprisoned. Interviewees report that even those with connections to countries outside this list, and those caught using WhatsApp or other foreign communications software, have also been detained. And in recent years, the Chinese government has stepped up pressure on other governments to forcibly return Uyghurs in their countries to China.

Human Rights Watch has also found that the Strike Hard Campaign has divided families, with some family members in Xinjiang and others abroad caught unexpectedly by the tightening of passport controls and border crossings. Children have at times been trapped in one country without their parents. Because Xinjiang authorities punish people for contacting their families abroad, many interviewees said they had lost contact, including with young children, for months or over a year. Others said their families, when they do manage to get in touch, have been instructed by authorities to press them to return to Xinjiang, or to obtain detailed information about their lives abroad. As a result, many ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs abroad live with fear and anxiety – particularly in countries where the governments have close relationships with Beijing – feeling that they are under the thumb of the Chinese government, despite being across a border or not even having Chinese citizenship.

***

The human rights violations in Xinjiang today are of a scope and scale not seen in China since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. The establishment and expansion of political education camps and other abusive practices suggest that Beijing’s commitment to transforming Xinjiang in its own image is long-term.

It is also evident that China does not foresee a significant political cost to its abusive Xinjiang campaign. Its global influence has largely spared it from public criticism. And its position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council means that it can deflect international action, whether sanctions imposed by the council or criminal prosecutions brought at the International Criminal Court, to which China is not a party.

The political obstacles to holding China accountable for its violations do not relieve the United Nations and governments of their responsibilities to uphold human rights protections. They should make use of international forums, such as the UN Human Rights Council, to bring global attention to the issues, notably at China’s Universal Periodic Review, and seek concerted action, such as establishing a special mandate to investigate the Strike Hard Campaign. If the UN does not establish a mechanism to investigate abuses in Xinjiang, concerned governments should create their own to gather evidence of arbitrary detentions and other abuses.

Should these efforts fail to reverse China’s policies in Xinjiang, governments should still pursue unilateral measures to send a strong message to the highest levels of the Chinese government to end these grotesque violations. Senior officials should use all opportunities to challenge President Xi publicly over his government’s abuses in Xinjiang.

Party Secretary Chen Quanguo and other senior officials responsible for the Strike Hard Campaign should face targeted sanctions – through tools such as the US Global Magnitsky Act and visa protocols. Appropriate export control regimes should be imposed to deny China technologies that facilitate abuses. And governments should take action to assist their own nationals harmed by Chinese policies in Xinjiang, and expedite asylum claims of those at risk of being returned to persecution in Xinjiang. They should also investigate the Chinese government’s intimidation of Turkic Muslim diaspora communities and invoke domestic law as appropriate. Concerned governments should monitor changing human rights developments in Xinjiang, including increased government repression of the Turkic Muslim population, to provide a rapid international response, including public condemnations and targeted sanctions.

Methodology

The scope of this research was severely limited because Human Rights Watch

researchers are unable to safely carry out research in Xinjiang. While a number of foreign academics, journalists, and diplomats have had some access to the region, such visits have been tightly monitored by the government. Gathering information would place those interviewed and their family members at serious risk.

This report includes the direct experiences of those held in political education camps and detention centers, but we were unable to speak directly with anyone who had recently been held in Xinjiang’s prisons.

The Chinese government is generally hostile to research by international human rights organizations and has long since strictly limited activities of domestic civil society groups, particularly those related to human rights. Government antagonism toward human rights monitoring has increased greatly under the presidency of Xi Jinping.

For this report, Human Rights Watch between March and August 2018 interviewed 58 people affected by the Strike Hard Campaign living outside China. Interviewees were living in Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Turkey, and the United States. The interviews were conducted primarily in Kazakh and Mandarin Chinese, as well as in English, German, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur, in many cases through an interpreter. Forty-three interviews were conducted in person, and 15 by phone.

Interviews with ethnic Kazakhs who left Xinjiang for Kazakhstan heavily inform the content of this report. Kazakhstan has the largest number of, and most recent arrivals from, Xinjiang, as Chinese authorities have increasingly reduced border crossings during the campaign. However, the limited information available suggests that Uyghurs may still be subjected to harsher, albeit similar, treatment to that of ethnic Kazakhs; this report may not reflect the full extent of the repressive policies in Xinjiang, particularly those directed at Uyghurs.

Human Rights Watch interviewed five former detainees of political education camps and formal detention centers; 38 interviewees were relatives of current detainees; and 10 were relatives of individuals not allowed to leave Xinjiang. Among the 58 interviewees, 19 people had left Xinjiang after January 2017. This date is relevant because it means those individuals would have experienced at least several months under the tenure of Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, who assumed leadership there in August 2016. In terms of ethnicity, 32 interviewees were ethnic Kazakhs, 23 ethnic Uyghurs, and one an ethnic Hui. An ethnic Uzbek and an ethnic Kyrgyz, who were spouses of Uyghurs, were also interviewed.

Apart from the two spouses, all other interviewees were from Xinjiang, including all 14 prefectural divisions: Altay, Bortala, Tacheng, Karamay, Changji, Urumqi, Turpan, Hami, Ili, Kizilsu, Kashgar, Aksu, Hotan, and Bayingolin.[2]

To protect their identities, the names of all interviewees have been changed, and the location where they were interviewed, along with their place of origin and ethnicity, have been withheld. However, the interviewee’s ages, gender, occupations, and other information have been provided where possible.

All those interviewed were informed of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways in which the information would be used. All interviewees provided verbal consent to be interviewed. All were informed that they could decline to answer questions or could end the interview at any time and that no compensation would be provided for participating.

Human Rights Watch sent a letter on August 13, 2018 to the Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo with questions related to the report (see Appendix I) but had not received any response at time of publication. Human Rights Watch also sent a letter on August 3, 2018, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdurakhmanov, and received a response dated August 25, 2018 (see Appendix II).

Except where stated, information from interviews has been used only where it could be corroborated by other interviews or secondary sources, including official Chinese media and government reports.

The report uses the term “Xinjiang” to refer to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. Uyghurs in exile often refer to the region as East Turkestan.

The report uses the term “political education camps” only to refer to those facilities in which people are barred from going home for days, months, or years; it does not include other forms of forced political indoctrination programs.

I. Overview of Human Rights in Xinjiang

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is home to Turkic Muslim ethnic minorities: the two biggest groups are the 11 million Uyghurs and the 1.6 million Kazakhs.[3] Once in the majority, Turkic Muslims now comprise only about half of Xinjiang’s population, and have never enjoyed the autonomy promised to them under Chinese law.

In a country with a majority Han population, the central government in Beijing has long treated Xinjiang as a “frontier” in which its exotic but alien Turkic Muslim populations require pacification and assimilation.[4] While some Turkic Muslims desire greater freedoms and autonomy under the current government, others demand a separate state. Beijing thus sees Turkic Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, as an ethno-nationalist threat to the Chinese state.[5]

Turkic Muslims in China

The Chinese authorities are hostile to many expressions of Uyghur identity, including religion, culture, language, and aspirations – including through peaceful transition – of independence.

Authorities enforce detailed and wide-ranging controls over daily life in Xinjiang to minimize, if not eradicate, these expressions. For example, the Chinese government has since the 1990s pushed for what it euphemistically calls “bilingual education” in Xinjiang, an approach that progressively prioritizes Mandarin while marginalizing the Uyghur language.[6]

Authorities restrict Uyghurs to a certain set of ideas and behaviors considered “normal” and patriotic. For example, they have banned baby names with religious connotations common in the Islamic world, such as Medina, because they encourage “excessive religious fervor.”[7] The government calls some of these “abnormal” thoughts or behaviors “the three [evil] forces” (“separatism, terrorism, and extremism”), and subjects those exhibiting them to corrections or punishments. A case in point is the respected Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, who was sentenced to life in prison for “separatism” in September 2014 after a grossly unfair trial.[8]

The Xinjiang authorities’ heavy-handed tactics towards Uyghurs has, since late 2016, broadened to target ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang. There are also reports that other Turkic Muslims, including Kyrgyz and Tartars, as well as Huis, who are non-Turkic Muslims, have also been subjected to some of the abuses described in this report.[9] Some Han –petitioners and activists – are also held in Xinjiang political education camps.[10]

At the same time, the government has been careful in wording official policies in keeping with its official propaganda promoting ethnic unity. Few draconian policies explicitly state that they target Turkic Muslims. Instead, they say they are applied to all of Xinjiang, or to southern Xinjiang, which remains predominantly Uyghur. The government also censors all critical discussions in China concerning the state’s policies towards minorities in Xinjiang.

The Strike Hard Campaign: A Loyalty Drive

Since May 2014, the Chinese government has waged what it calls the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” (严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动) in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has often pursued “Strike Hard” campaigns throughout China. While the government says they are effective crime-fighting measures, they are often very abusive. Because police and other officials are encouraged or pressured to achieve high rates of detentions, they are even more inclined than under ordinary circumstances to disregard basic rights guaranteed under Chinese law. Human Rights Watch has previously highlighted the abusive nature of these drives, particularly in Xinjiang and Tibet, where they have led to numerous arbitrary arrests and summary executions.

Under the leadership of Party Secretary Chen Quanquo, who was transferred from Tibet to Xinjiang in August 2016, repression in Xinjiang has reached new heights. The worsening rights situation in Xinjiang also reflects that deepening repression throughout China since President Xi Jinping came to power in March 2013. Among other aspects of everyday life, Xi has tightened the government’s grip on religious practice, declaring that religions in China need to be “Sinicized” and have their foreign influence purged.[12]

This Strike Hard Campaign has several stated objectives, but mainly targets anyone who “challenges … state security, ethnic unity, and social stability,”[13] which are overly broad labels the government has long misused to punish peaceful activism and expression.[14] To uncover these threats – including those who secretly harbor anti-government sentiment – officials scrutinize the level of Turkic Muslims’ political loyalty by dividing people into three categories: “trustworthy” (放心户), “average” (一般户), and “untrustworthy” (不放心户). People who are considered “untrustworthy” are subjected to more official surveillance and restrictions. Their level of trustworthiness is assessed by their social categories, such as whether they are government officials, their familial and social networks, and their behavior, including whether they have repeatedly contacted people abroad.

One major feature of the ongoing Strike Hard Campaign is the deployment of “fanghuiju” (访惠聚)[15] teams in Xinjiang. Between 2014 and 2017, Xinjiang authorities sent 200,000 cadres from government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and public institutions to be stationed in villages, regularly visit and surveil people, and subject them to political propaganda, a scheme that has been extended indefinitely.[16] In October 2016, authorities initiated a related effort, called the “Becoming Family” (结对认亲) campaign. Since December 2017, this “Becoming Family” campaign has been expanded as a compulsory homestay program where more than a million cadres spend at least five days every two months in the homes of Xinjiang residents primarily in the countryside.[17]

The Strike Hard Campaign has also targeted minority officials whom the authorities accuse as being “two-faced” or disloyal – those who disagree with the heavy-handed approach in Xinjiang, and those accused of disciplinary infractions such as corruption and family planning violations – and subject them to detention and possible imprisonment. Some of the highest-ranking Uyghur officials toppled in this crackdown include three senior education officials who have been detained for distributing educational materials in Uyghur and Kazakh languages. Authorities said these materials had spread pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism, poisoning students with “separatism.”[18]

Another major objective of the Strike Hard Campaign is strengthened border control. Xinjiang residents have long been subjected to a more onerous passport application process than people living in Han-majority areas in China.[19] In August 2015, for reasons that remain unclear, authorities made it easier for Xinjiang residents to apply for and obtain passports. But beginning October 2016, Xinjiang authorities started to recall passports, allegedly for reasons of “collective management.”[20] This essentially empowers the police to scrutinize and control each foreign visit, and to heighten scrutiny over those who have links abroad. The authorities have targeted those with connections to a list of “26 sensitive countries” (see Table 1).[21]

Since the start of the Strike Hard Campaign, the Chinese government has also ramped up efforts to compel Chinese citizens of Kazakh and Uyghur ethnicity living abroad to return (see also, Section IV, p. 87), even when the government has not accused them of specific crimes nor appears to have gone through formal extradition channels.

Asylum seekers and refugees in countries are particularly susceptible to pressure from the Chinese government. In July 2017, Egyptian authorities rounded up dozens of Uyghur students in the country at the behest of the Chinese government, forcing at least 20 to return.[22] Thailand, Malaysia, and Afghanistan have, since 2014, deported groups of Uyghurs sought by the Chinese government; Malaysia and Thailand continue to hold groups of Uyghurs at risk of forced return.[23] Additional cases of detained Uyghurs facing deportation have also been reported in Bulgaria, Cambodia, India, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.[24] Governments that have returned Uyghurs at risk of persecution or torture and other ill-treatment to China have violated their international legal obligations.[25]

Table 1: An official list of “26 Sensitive Countries” Afghanistan Libya Thailand Algeria Malaysia Turkey Azerbaijan Nigeria Turkmenistan Egypt Pakistan United Arab Emirates Indonesia Russia Uzbekistan Iran Saudi Arabia Yemen Iraq Somalia Kazakhstan South Sudan Kenya Syria Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

Tech-Enabled Surveillance and Security State

Another major objective of the Strike Hard Campaign is to weave an even-tighter net of surveillance across the region.[26] In addition to the tens of thousands of new security personnel and “convenience” police stations, numerous checkpoints – equipped with facial recognition-enabled cameras – across the region examine people and vehicles on roads, in residential areas, and at any point where crowds might gather, such as bus and train stations, entry points to towns and villages, hotels, restaurants, and markets.[27] Other security measures include requiring people in some locales to put QR codes on certain types of knives, including kitchen and craft knives, and linking the codes to their ID card numbers.[28] In Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, all liquids – including water – lighters, and powders are banned from public transport.[29]

The security presence is so ubiquitous that some domestic Chinese tourists visiting the region marveled at it, noting that the checkpoints meant they “had to stop and start the entire day,”[30] even though they were traveling on the highway. Others have noted that in some places, authorities have established “green channels” where Han go through without checks, while Turkic Muslims have to line up on another lane to wait for stringent security controls.[31]

One person told Human Rights Watch that he was at an official meeting when the authorities discussed these “green channels”:

In a ‘stability maintenance’ meeting, [the authorities] told us that there are these ‘green channels’ in which those who official license plates are let through–a scanner reads the licenses–but the Uyghurs have to line up and their trunks (后备箱) checked. The authorities told us that, ‘Han, they come to develop Xinjiang, so they should be allowed through the green channel; but the Uyghurs, there are terrorists among them, so they should be checked. You shouldn’t dispute this.’[32]

Efforts to monitor Uyghurs include the use of modern, and often cutting-edge, surveillance and biometric technologies. Human Rights Watch has documented the Xinjiang authorities’ directive to authorities to collect biometrics, including DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types of all residents between the age of 12 and 65.[33] These biometrics, as well as “voice samples,” are collected as part of the passport application process; in addition, DNA and blood types are being collected through a free annual physical exams program called Physicals for All.[34]

Click to expand Image A checkpoint equipped with facial recognition in Turpan, Xinjiang. The photographer noted that police let Han through a fast lane without checking them while Turkic Muslims were in long lines waiting for a thorough security check. © 2018 Darren Byler

It is unclear exactly how authorities are using the biometrics, but the amount of information they have on people is enough to frighten many from that region (see Section III, p.73), particularly given that they have no ability to challenge the collection, use, distribution, or retention of this data.

There is also a predictive policing program based on big data and machine learning analysis in Xinjiang called the “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” (IJOP).[35] That tool aggregates data about people, often without their knowledge, and detects deviations from what authorities deem “normal,” such as the failure to pay phone bills, and treats them as indicators that a person may be politically “untrustworthy.” The IJOP then generates lists of people considered threatening to the authorities; the police then apprehend them, interrogate them, and detain some of them.

Restrictions on Freedom of Religion

Authorities have long imposed pervasive restrictions on peaceful religious practice nationally (see Section V, p. 95) and particularly in Xinjiang. The Chinese government’s restrictions on the practice of Islam in Xinjiang are among the strictest and most comprehensive in the world.

Human Rights Watch, in 2005, documented a multi-tiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang's Uyghurs.[36] Since then, these controls have been strengthened. Following the unrest in Urumqi in 2009,[37] there was a burst of regulatory activities aimed at religion, and again in 2016, during the current Strike Hard Campaign. In addition, the Xinjiang Regulations on Religious Affairs were passed in 2014, replacing an outdated 1994 version, further imposing restrictions on religion.[38]

Taken together, these regional rules curtail many expressions of Islam. The rules:

Ban any form of appearance – including facial hair and clothing – that is interpreted to “whip up religious fanaticism, [and] disseminate religious extremist ideologies”;

Require that all Hajj (pilgrimages to Mecca) must be organized by the state;

Require that the use of “halal” be restricted only to certain food products (meat, dairy and edible oils) and ban such labels for other purposes;

Prohibit the creation, possession, consumption, and dissemination –including on the internet – of a range of materials defined so broadly and vaguely that any expression can be construed as prohibited. For example, they include anything that “undermines national unity, social stability, economic development, or scientific and technological progress” [39] or that “affects religious harmony” [40] ;

or that “affects religious harmony” ; Prohibit the circulation of many types of documents relating to religious and ethnic policies which would routinely be public information in other countries, such as drafts of religious laws and regulations;

Ban religion from education and punishes teachers for failure to stop or report any activities that has “hints of religion” in schools;

Ban children from participating in religious activities and prohibit anyone, including parents and teachers, from introducing religion to children, including at home; and

Ban high school students from dropping out of school for religious reasons.[41]

These overly broad prohibitions make it possible for the authorities to arbitrarily impose punishments on any form of peaceful religious, or even non-religious, expressions. As discussed below (See Section III, Heightened Religious Restrictions), interviewees who have left Xinjiang since 2017 describe increasing government controls over Islamic practices, from greetings to praying.

Response to Terrorism?

As the name of the Strike Hard Campaign suggests, the Chinese government has sought to justify many repressive measures as being necessary to eliminate what it considers to be terrorism and extremism in the region.

The Chinese government has not always portrayed Xinjiang’s problems as involving terrorism. In the 1980s, Xinjiang residents enjoyed a relative period of relaxed government policies. But in April 1990, armed confrontations between Uyghurs in Baren township, northwest of Kashgar, and Chinese authorities led China to launch a long-term strategy to assert tighter control over Uyghur areas.[42] At the same time, the Soviet Union collapsed, leading to the emergence of new Central Asian republics, which the Chinese government feared would stir up ethno-nationalist aspirations in Xinjiang.[43]

Beijing then launched an ambitious plan to accelerate the integration of Xinjiang into China by encouraging Han migration to Xinjiang while committing major resources to economic growth, chiefly through the exploitation of Xinjiang's natural resources. In 1949, Uyghurs made up 75 percent of Xinjiang’s population while Han accounted for only 7 percent; currently, Uyghurs account for 48 percent of Xinjiang’s population of approximately 23.6 million, while Han have reached 36 percent, or 8.6 million people.[44] Uyghurs felt increasingly marginalized, fueling at times violent protests against Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang, some of which were brutally suppressed, which further exacerbated the grievances towards the state.

Although Xinjiang authorities began to publicly acknowledge anti-state violence in the mid-1990s, they generally suggested that it was carried out only by "a handful of separatists." However, after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Chinese authorities increasingly portrayed its repression in Xinjiang as part of the “global war on terror.”

The Chinese government continues to lobby foreign governments and inter-governmental agencies to label East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other Uyghur organizations and individuals, including those that peacefully advocate Uyghur independence, as terrorists, and sought foreign cooperation in what it says to be counterterrorism efforts in Xinjiang.[45] In April 2018, for example, it sought but failed to block the accreditation of Dolkun Isa, a Uyghur rights activist, for a UN forum claiming he is a “terrorist.”[46]

There have been a number of reported violent incidents in Xinjiang – notably the Urumqi market bombing in 2014 – and violence attributed to Uyghurs in Beijing in 2013 and Kunming in 2014. Most reports about these and other violent incidents generally describe the events as premeditated attacks, often as terrorism. The Chinese government has blamed some of them on foreign groups including ETIM, though the groups’ existence, strength, and threat level has been debated.

The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which many consider to be part of ETIM, has claimed responsibility for the Urumqi and Beijing attacks.[47] Some Uyghurs have also joined armed extremist groups in Syria, and TIP, which has aligned itself with Al-Qaeda and has set up a Syrian branch.[48] The Chinese government representative said in August 2018 that there are no accurate figure of the number of Uyghurs who have joined armed extremist groups in Syria, though an earlier 2014 Chinese state media report put the figure at 300.[49] Obtaining accurate accounts of violence in Xinjiang is extremely difficult since the Chinese government keeps tight control over this information.

Chinese law defines terrorism and extremism in an overbroad and vague manner and does not require that action be taken in furtherance of a crime to prompt prosecution, deprivation of liberty, or other restrictions.[50] Terrorism charges can stem from mere possession of “items that advocate terrorism,” even though there is no clear definition of what these materials may be.[51]

The Xinjiang Implementing Measures on the Counterterrorism Law and the Xinjiang Counter Extremism Regulations further prohibit a large range of activity relevant to ethnic, religious, and political expression, including “intimidating or inducing others to boycott national policy measures, or destroy[ing] state documents,” such as identity documents.[52]

The Chinese government has also publicized – particularly in Xinjiang – a list of “75 behavioral indicators of religious extremism.”[53] While that list includes some reasonable examples of incitement to violence, such as “inciting the Holy War,” many if not most indicators are highly questionable. They include a range of vague and imprecise “behaviors” and “symptoms” that are considered “unusual” and thus warrant additional scrutiny, including people who “store large amounts of food in their homes,” “those who smoke and drink but quit doing so suddenly” or “those who buy or store equipment such as dumbbells…boxing gloves, as well as maps, compasses, telescopes, ropes, and tents without obvious reasons.”[54]

Obtaining information about terrorism court cases in China is difficult. In March 2017, Human Rights Watch searched through all court verdicts available online through China Court Net, a general news site run by the Supreme People’s Court, and the Peking University Law Database in 2016 and found only four cases of terrorism convictions.[55] In addition to these cases, Human Rights Watch learned of about a dozen other individuals who were punished for terrorism-related offenses. None of these 2016 cases indicate that the offenders had perpetrated or were linked to violent acts, all of them were punished for possessing, accessing, and distributing terrorism-related videos or audios.

An Action Plan to Uncover “Hidden” Extremists An action plan issued by the Baluntai Town government in north-central Xinjiang provides some insight into the local implementation of the Strike Hard Campaign. The plan reflects some level of concern about insurgency or terrorism, such as imposing control over matchsticks and lathes for fear that they can be used for weapon-making, but much of it outlines draconian controls over the Turkic Muslim population. The plan lists 20 categories of people as untrusted and as targets for detention, including people who have stayed abroad “too long” and those who have, independently and without state permission, organized Hajj pilgrimages. People are evaluated not only for what they may think or do, but also according to the conduct of those whom they know. Among these 20 categories, there are also “families of individuals who were killed by the police in the past” and “families of those who have … unusual communications with those abroad.” It also orders officials to subject three generations of relatives of those who are detained to heightened surveillance, to prevent them from “retaliating.” Elsewhere in the document, authorities say they are searching for “hidden” networks of extremism, which they say exist between Communist Party cadres, religious figures, business people, and “violent terrorists.” The directive orders the detention of followers of certain religious and cultural figures whom authorities consider to be “separatists.” Officials are required to collect information – including on income, family members, and the religion – of people who have been abroad and log this into police databases. While this includes people who have joined ETIM and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), targets of such surveillance also include anyone who has been to one of the listed 26 countries. Anyone whom the authorities say has crossed the border out of Xinjiang unlawfully is detained upon return, and family members with whom these people communicated while abroad are also detained. The action plan also requires police to subject people who “normally” study or do business abroad to additional entry/exit screening and requires them to report to local police immediately for interrogation after they return.

International Aspects of the Strike Hard Campaign

Xinjiang borders eight countries. An estimated 500,000 ethnic Uyghurs reside outside China; some have become naturalized citizens in these countries.[57] They are primarily in three countries in Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.[58] An estimated 136,000 ethnic Kazakhs have emigrated from China to Kazakhstan in the last three decades, where the government has encouraged them to return, and where they are put on a fast-track for Kazakh citizenship.[59] About 10,000 Uyghurs have also settled in Turkey; while other communities of over 1,000 Uyghurs are found in Australia, Canada, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US.[60]

Almost concurrently with an earlier Strike Hard Campaign in Xinjiang in 1996, China began encouraging security cooperation with Central Asian countries through the formation of the Shanghai Five group with a focus on cooperating against what they termed terrorism.[61] In 2001, the Chinese government founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and in 2018, India and Pakistan. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has successfully secured support in these countries to suppress Uyghurs from advocating for an independent Uyghur nation, and to monitor, harass, and deport Uyghurs living there.

Some international businesses operate in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch has documented US company Thermo Fisher Scientific’s sales of DNA sequencers to the Xinjiang police, which the authorities appear to use in their abusive DNA collection and profiling efforts.[62] One international investor, Deutsche Bank, has recommended that investors buy stocks in a Chinese artificial intelligence-driven video surveillance company specifically because of their contracts in Xinjiang.[63]

II. Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Mistreatment in Detention Centers and Political Education Camps

[A]fter [Party Secretary] Chen Quanguo came, the Xinjiang authorities divided people into three categories: those who can be trusted, “the general” category, and those who cannot be trusted. They say they need to put those “who cannot be trusted in trustworthy” places – where are the trustworthy places? Well, the detention facilities.

—Ilham, who left Xinjiang in 2017, June 2018

Under the Strike Hard Campaign, Chinese authorities have stepped up the use of arbitrary detention. Individuals taken into custody by the police are first interrogated, then either transferred to detention centers or taken directly to political education camps. In detention centers, they are held before being tried; those not convicted and sentenced to prison terms are sent to political education camps or released.

Click to expand Image Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo (third from left) in a state press photo visiting a Turkic Muslim family in Xinjiang. © Xinjiang state media (天山网)

Human Rights Watch interviewed five people who provided first-hand accounts about being held in detention centers or political education camps. Alim, was detained in a detention center and released after several weeks; Nur was held in both types of facilities; the three others – Rustam, Erkin, and Ehmet – were held only in political education camps.

Abuses during Police Interrogations

Lack of Due Process

Police interrogate individuals taken into custody without regard to basic due process protections, including providing an arrest warrant, setting out a recognizable criminal offense, or allowing access to legal counsel.

Four of the five former detainees with whom Human Rights Watch spoke had entered China as foreign nationals; all had been Chinese citizens but moved to and became citizens of other countries. They returned to China for various reasons, including doing business and visiting relatives. The focus of Chinese police interrogations was on their lives abroad and their religious practices. Alim said:

[The interrogators] asked [me], “What do you do? Where have you been in the [foreign country]?” They checked my passport and saw I’ve never been anywhere else beside that [foreign country]. They started asking, “Who [do you] know who is Uyghur in that [foreign country]? Have you used any other passport to visit any other countries? Do you pray, do you smoke, do you drink?”[64]

Ehmet said the police asked him:

“Who are your friends in that [foreign country]? What are the people there like? Who do you know? What kind of business do you do? Are you a Muslim? Do you go to a mosque?” They asked lots of questions about [life in] [my country] and about the [people] there.[65]

The police accused them of various offenses. The three who were sent to political education camps were accused of having dual citizenship, and of using an abbreviation of their country’s name in their WeChat ID, neither of which is a crime in China:

[T]hey said there's a problem with my hukou [household registration][66].…They said I have dual citizenship. I told them I know Chinese law says that once someone picks up a foreign citizenship they lose their Chinese citizenship, so I don't have dual citizenship. They say I was required to cancel my hukou. But I say, I’ve done so, I have properly cancelled my Chinese passport. I am a foreign citizen.[67]

The police also accused the two men who were held in detention centers of “disturbing social order,” “endangering state security,” and “harboring terrorists.” However, the police did not provide evidence of criminal behavior. Nur said:

At 10 a.m., five police officers came to my home without any warrant. I refused to go [with them] and they forcibly took me. … [T]hey told me I had “endangered state security” and that I had ‘harbored terrorists’ – a relative of mine had sought political asylum abroad, so they maybe referring to that, but they didn’t say. So, I said, ‘Where’s your evidence? How can you detain me without reasons?’ They said, ‘You sign now.’ But I said, ‘I refuse to sign, you have no reasons.’[68]

All five former detainees said they were required to sign various documents – some promising that they will not speak about the details of their detention, some promising that they will return to China. Only one held in a detention center, Alim, was asked to sign a detention warrant. But none of the five former detainees was given a copy of the paperwork involving their detention. When Alim asked for a copy of the warrant and other documents, the police refused, saying, “You don’t need that.”[69]

The detention of people without recognizable criminal offenses, particularly for those in political education camps, was corroborated by interviewees with families who told Human Rights Watch that the authorities had not given them any official reasons or paperwork for the detentions.

Two interviewees said officials told them police must fulfill quotas for detaining people in Xinjiang. According to Ilham:

I have heard it myself from the local police.… They were having headaches about it.… So the police … told people they caught that they have to tell the names of three to four people they know, people who’ve done the namaz [prayed five times a day] in the last three or four years, and [told them that], “If you come up with these names, we’ll release you.”[70]

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Detainees described mistreatment during the interrogation, evidently to obtain confessions or information, that amounted to torture or other ill-treatment. Three of the former detainees said that they were strapped to a metal chair – also known as a “tiger chair” – during police interrogation. Two were subjected to sleep deprivation. Ehmet said:

They interrogated me for four days and four nights during which I was not allowed to sleep. I was strapped to an iron chair.... I was also chained for three hours, with my arms up like this, so that my toes were barely touching the ground for three hours.[72]

Nur said:

I got very tired and fatigued from sitting in that [iron] chair and I really wanted to attack someone [because I was angry].… [In the iron chair] they didn't really wake you up, but you couldn't sleep either because everything hurts ... your knees, neck, and back hurts.[73]

Abuses in Detention Centers

While some individuals convicted of crimes on politically motivated charges were held in detention centers prior to being sent to prison, others described being held without charge, without being informed of violating a recognizable criminal offense, and being subjected to various forms of torture and other ill-treatment.

Detention Without Charge

Alim and Nur told Human Rights Watch that in their cells there were only Uyghurs and Kazakhs, and a few Hui Muslims. Nur said the guards explicitly told the detainees that they were being held for being Turkic Muslims:

[The guards] told us that Uyghurs and Kazakhs are the enemies of China, and that they want to kill us, and make us suffer, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. There were a few Hui, but they were held there for triad [organized] crime, later there were some Hui that came in for political crimes.[74]

Alim and Nur said fellow detainees told them they were being held in detention centers for religious or other peaceful activities that did not constitute crimes:

I know of a guy … who was taken away for having set his watch to [the unofficial] Urumqi time[75] – they say that’s what makes him suspicious for terrorism. I know three restaurant owners …[who] ran ‘Islamic’ restaurants – they got detained because they don’t allow smoking or drinking in their restaurants…. [The authorities] are banning everything Islamic. Not to talk about your clothing, or your beard; they think many things show you have incorrect thoughts.[76]

Among those held in the detention centers were people held pending transfer to prisons upon conviction for peaceful actions:

When I was talking with people in the jail cell I heard the police are recovering their computer files and jailing them for religious stuff. There was a 21-year-old who went to Egypt to study Arabic…. There was a guy who got [convicted and imprisoned for] eight years – he said he had some e-books in Uyghur and he said the police counted that as religious materials, he was also convicted for teaching it to kids. Another 60-year-old had sent a tabligh audio – it is a form of Islamic religious teachings – to his daughter, and his daughter passed it to a friend. He got six years and his daughter got three years.[77]

Nur said some fellow detainees were being held solely for having visited or having links with people abroad:

I met people who … have friends who have gone to Australia or Turkey or [places] outside China. It’s not even that they have close relatives abroad. Having friends or neighbors who have gone abroad [is enough to get detained]. … [T]hey are detained without reasons.…Like… because he told his neighbor that they shouldn’t drink because they are Muslims. That got reported to the “shequ”[78] [neighborhood] office, and the man is detained. Or another person got detained because he had spoken too loudly to an official.[79]

Torture and Ill-Treatment in Detention Centers

Detainees described torture and ill-treatment in detention centers that included beatings, being hung from ceilings and walls, and prolonged shackling.

Alim and Nur said that they and their fellow detainees were tortured or ill-treated. Said Nur:

I saw five people tortured and beaten. One was an 18-year-old, whose relative was in Egypt. That relative got into some trouble – taking pictures in places he shouldn’t and got taken in by the Egyptian authorities who gave him a trumped-up charge. Then that 18-year-old, because of this, was beaten every week, terrible beatings to make him admit to the charge of terrorism.[80]

Alim said fellow detainees were afraid of being taken out of the cell for interrogations, as they were afraid of being tortured:

[A detainee] showed me his scar from being hung from the ceiling. He didn’t have any religious materials, but after being hung for a night, he said he would agree to anything.[81]

Alim and Nur said the detainees in detention centers were chained and shackled. Said Nur:

I was chained to the bed. There was a hook in the bed, and I was chained and at most I could only stand up, and then sit down again. My legs still hurt from having been shackled… They told us we were treated that way because the legal procedures say those who have committed murders are being treated that way. But later…they changed the way we were shackled. They say there's a Xinjiang-wide order that all Uyghurs and Kazaks would have their feet shackled and their hands chained together. Like that, with just five to six rings apart making movement very difficult.[82]

Both reported overcrowding. Said Nur:

There we were at first 24 people held in a 12-square-meter room…. By the time I left, 34 to 35 people were in that small space. We were like sheep being herded into a crowded space. There was no fresh air, there was only a tiny window up above, and we had to take turns to sleep and to eat.[83]

Said Alim:

We had 21 people and sometimes 22 or 23 people [in a space meant for 12].… Sometimes we had to sleep on my side because if we slept on our backs there’d be no room.[84]

Both men told Human Rights Watch that they were denied access to lawyers, their families, and their embassies. Said Alim:

The [detention center] rules said we should be allowed lawyers but that never happened…. I asked to see the guards…. “Can I talk to my family?” [They said], “No, no. You’re not allowed to talk to anybody.” [I said], “Not even a lawyer?” “No, no.”[85]

Abuses in Political Education Camps

[T]he training [and education] is to eliminate the hidden dangers affecting stability in our society and to put people whom we do not trust in a trusted place. It is to make them into people who are politically qualified...It is to let them learn legal knowledge …[and] to learn Han Chinese…. In [the political education camps], they are clothed, given food and a place to live; under militarized management, they develop good habits and regular schedules … so that later they can be role models for their children, family, and friends.

—A village Communist Party secretary in Ili, Xinjiang, in a speech to families of detainees, October 2017

They say this is a political education camp, but in reality, it is like a prison, it is surrounded by metal bars everywhere.

—Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee Rustam, May 2018

Our relatives told us that [my brother] is being held in a political education camp “because he’d gone to [a foreign country] and that his brain needs to be cleaned.”

—Human Rights Watch interview with Talgat, 29, whose younger brother was being detained in a political education camp, May 2018

Former detainees and official reports confirmed that political education camps are located in former schools, elderly people’s homes, production plants, and prisons. The authorities have also built, or are building, new political education camps.[86]

Click to expand Image A Chinese Communist Party chief in Ili, Xinjiang tells families of those held in political education camps that the camps aim to transform people into “politically qualified…role models” for society. On the wall are the slogans: “Love the Motherland and Be Grateful to the Party; Listen to the Party and Follow the Party.” © Yili Normal University, Xinjiang

These political education camps focus on military-style discipline and pervasive political indoctrination of the detainees. Turkic Muslims are disproportionately represented in the detainee population compared to the general population of the region, though local languages and religious practices are banned or discouraged. Detainees are required to understand the “crimes” they have committed, though the actions were not criminal offenses under Chinese criminal law.

There have been reports of deaths in the political education camps, raising concerns about physical and psychological abuse, as well as stress from poor conditions, overcrowding, and indefinite confinement – but available information is limited.

Political Indoctrination

Authorities have enforced military-style discipline in the political education camps. Detainees described being required to “fold blankets neatly, like in the military”[87] upon waking, and learning how to stand and march in military style.[88]

Click to expand Image Officials unveil a new political education camp in Bayingolin, Xinjiang. © Yuli County, Xinjiang

Detainees told Human Rights Watch that they had to participate in a flag-raising ceremony every morning; as part of this ceremony or afterwards, they had to learn to sing propaganda songs praising President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party:

We had to sing “Red” songs like “Without the CCP, There's No New China" (《没有共产党，就没有新中国》) [and] "Socialism is Good" (《社会主义好》). Depending on how the police officer standing at the gate [watching us] feels, we had to sing between one to three songs.[89]

Praising Xi and the Party was also required before every meal, Nur said:

Then, before meals, we had to stand and say; ‘We feel grateful for the Party, grateful for the Motherland, [and] grateful for President Xi;’ that ‘We wish President Xi good health, that the Motherland is prosperous, and that the ethnic groups are in harmony,’ before we were allowed to sit down and eat.[90]

Detainees, some of whom only speak Turkic languages radically different from Mandarin Chinese, were required to learn to read and write over a thousand Chinese characters and speak Mandarin. Detainees are not allowed to speak their languages or talk about foreign countries. Erkin said:

We weren’t allowed to say As-salaam alaikum, a religious greeting, but ni hao ma? [how are you?] and speak Mandarin only, [like] xie xie ni [thank you]. And if I used [Turkic language] words, they would punish me.[91]

He continued:

They told me this is a political education camp I said, ‘Why am I in a political education camp? I’m a citizen of [a foreign country].’ They said, ‘You’re no longer a citizen [of that foreign country], and you will never use this term in your speech.’ We were all very fearful to speak about [that foreign country], all of us, we wouldn’t even say its name.[92]

Detainees were told that their release was conditional upon their ability to “learn” Chinese and the propaganda songs. One nearly illiterate man said:

We had to learn songs and we had to learn Chinese…. [the authorities] understood that I could not understand any Chinese and that I could not learn [it], so the director of the camp came and told me, “You have all those crimes … you have to learn Chinese and you have to learn all those songs by heart. If you don’t, you have to be here for one year, if you don’t learn within a year, you’d have to be here for five years.”[93]

The detainees have varying abilities to try to grasp a new, complex language:

In the classroom, we would come in, and there were two police officers right outside the metal door of the [classroom]. Among us there were illiterate people, there were also university graduates, scholars, even PhD graduates, [and] we were all mixed. We had to write down everything, copy everything and sat on hard chairs [for hours]. Some of the characters were very small and yet we had to copy them.…There were lots of people in their 60s and 70s and they had to learn 1,500 Chinese characters … and they say then you'd be released. But these old people, some can't even see! How can they learn the characters?[94]

Political education camp authorities also made detainees memorize other rules as part of their “education”:

From 8 a.m. we had to learn about the rules and regulations, like ‘We are resolutely against ‘the three evil forces,’’ the 32 rules that you must memorize like, ‘we are against religious extremism’ that we have to ‘support the Party.’[95]

Ehmet described some of the rules he had to learn:

We can now no longer say Islamic greetings, but only [the Mandarin greeting] ni hao; Uyghur restaurant signs cannot have Uyghur or Kazakh writings, only Chinese characters; In public places you cannot use Kazakh or Uyghur to speak to each other; Kazakh/Uyghur language schools are banned; You cannot communicate with people in 26 countries including Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey; The [Chinese] third generation ID will not have one’s ethnicities listed; On WeChat, QQ [a Chinese social media service] and websites, minorities cannot set up their own chat groups, and if anyone dared to do so … they'd be given 2 ½ years in political education; There are rewards for Hans and Kazakhs to intermarry (90,000 RMB [US$13,000] and that they can also apply for big loans); If ordinary people violate these rules and leak state secrets, they're going to be heavily punished; and If people sell their private properties, 50 percent of that will go to the state.

Another rule was that for those who go abroad, their passports must be kept by the state for safekeeping.”[96]

To ensure the detainees have memorized everything, the “teachers” in the camps checked the “students” periodically:

There were three teachers with 70 to 80 students and they'd test us every week on Sunday. There were written exams as well as homework, we had to write our thoughts after watching propaganda videos, saying stuff like ‘How I feel grateful for the Party, the Party is so great,’ this and that. It's all so stupid…. The teachers also pick a student to stand up and to memorize the rules, and if they don't manage they have to stand under the scorching sun. I also know that people get beaten because they'd be taken away and afterwards when they took off their clothes I could see they have bruises.[97]

Click to expand Image Officials bring villagers on tour outside a political education camp in Hotan. © Yutian County, Xinjiang

During their “education,” detainees were required to sit long hours on stools or chairs that were not comfortable, and not allowed to move. Rustam said: “During the day, we had to sit on stools…Between 8 a.m. to noon we weren't allowed to move freely… At 2 p.m. we would be made to study [sitting on stools] until evening.[98]

Similarly, Erkin told Human Rights Watch that: “I sat on this stool for 30 days and my bottom started to hurt.… I can no longer bear sitting on that stool.”[99]

Former detainees also reported being watched closely. Said Rustam:

Nobody can move because they watch you through the video cameras, and after a while a voice came from the speakers telling you that now you can relax for a few minutes. That voice also tells you off for moving. …we were watched, even in the toilet. In political education camp we were always under stress. They chose one leader among us to watch us – the leader has privileges like smoking. …Also, they selected three to five people among us to monitor others. If you whisper, next week you would not be allowed calls or showers. The problem was, because the quota for misbehavior was mandatory, even if people had not spoken, they would still be punished because if they couldn't come up with three to five names the monitors themselves would be punished.[100]

Lack of Due Process

One element of the “education” in political education camps is “legal education”: detainees have to learn about their “crimes,” which are not criminal offenses under Chinese law. Said Erkin:

On day two of our lectures, it was about our ‘crimes.’ They told us about our ‘crimes’ in Mandarin Chinese but I didn’t understand. I asked my neighbor what they were talking about…. they said I was a citizen of [a foreign country] for 15 years and used both citizenships. That’s your ‘crime.’[101]

Click to expand Image Government social media post in April 2017 shows detainees in a political education camp in Lop County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang. © Xinjiang Bureau of Justice WeChat Account

Interviewees told Human Rights Watch that their fellow detainees were held in political education camps for having relationships with people in the list of 26 foreign countries, or for having practiced Islam. Erkin told Human Rights Watch:

There was … an [ethnic] Kazakh [next to me]. I asked why is he held? He said: ‘I have a wife in Kazakhstan and she divorced me, and I missed my child so much I went to look for her, but I didn’t find her. So, all I did was to see some relatives. …I came home, and they detained me.’ There was an [ethnic] Uyghur, who was our leader [in the cell], he’d been detained for having a beard.... [My neighbor] was an old man…. he is a retiree, he receives pensions [in Kazakhstan], but they lied to him and lured him into China. They told him if he came to China his pensions would increase. When he came they just detained him…. There were lots of people detained who were in the process of obtaining their Kazakhstan citizenship. They were pressured to sign documents endorsing Chinese citizenship and to abstain from their Kazakhstan citizenship.[102]

Said Rustam:

Nobody really knows why they were there. There was an imam of a mosque, who said a prayer for someone when that person came to a mosque requesting it, and someone else informed on the imam and he was detained. There were people who got fooled into selling their land and when they complained they were taken away for political education.… Some people had been imprisoned for 5 and 10 years already and then they were taken here to be detained again. I met someone who was in prison for 16 years and now he is being ‘educated.’[103]

Rustam and Erkin said that some of their fellow detainees had already served prison sentences but were then sent to political education camps immediately upon release. Said Ainagul:

In September 2017, [my husband] was released after 13 years in prison. I heard from my relatives that he's been released.... But then he was transferred to a political education camp. How horrible it is to have already been sentenced to 13 years and now this? What is he guilty of?[104]

Families interviewed also said that detainees have been held for having foreign ties. According to Medina:

I can understand if [my husband] did something wrong and he is punished, but he didn’t do anything. [The authorities] ask him, ‘Why do you go to [this foreign country]?’.... My husband’s cousin’s brother has also been detained…for going to Malaysia as a tourist. Just for that, he’s been detained, I don’t know how they can detain people for doing nothing.[105]

Enlik said:

[T]he police came and checked my husband's phone and they found that he's been discussing the possibility of migrating to [a foreign country] and they said, ‘Why are you talking about moving to [that foreign country]?’…15 days later they took him to the political education camp…. I don’t understand why this is happening. He's not a criminal, but how come he's detained just for talking about [a foreign country]?[106]

Dastan told Human Rights Watch:

[My wife] was about to go back [to a foreign country] but they took her passport. And when she went to ask to get her passport back, they told her she needs to be subjected to political education for 10 days, and then they will let her go. That was on July 20, 2017. Since then, she’s been in political education camp.[107]

The police appear to be checking, in particular, whether people are using certain software provided by foreign companies to communicate with those abroad, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN, often used to circumvent China’s Great Firewall) or WhatsApp. According to Omerjan:

I downloaded WhatsApp on my father’s phone when he was here [in a foreign country] and I wanted to check if he can use WhatsApp over there [in Xinjiang], so I sent him a message and after he received it, he was taken away. And I didn’t even say anything, I just sent a greeting. He was taken away for a day, during which they asked him all kinds of questions about his WhatsApp.[108]

After this interrogation, Omerjan’s father was taken to a political education camp, where he was being held at time of writing. Medina’s husband also got detained for using WhatsApp:

[My husband] went to China and [the authorities] found WhatsApp on his phone and they accused him of speaking to someone in [a foreign country] through WhatsApp…. In a week’s time ... without any reason or grounds, [the authorities] took him to a political education camp. He left when his son was just one year and three months old, and now he is nearly two.[109]

Sofia said her daughter, a college student studying abroad, got detained for using a VPN:

She’s visiting relatives [in Xinjiang] and needed to access her school’s website for homework…and [she] used a VPN … but throughout my daughter’s detention, they never told us why they were holding her. I only knew about the VPN after my ex-husband made enquiries about why she was detained and those [who knew] told him.[110]

Former detainees also told Human Rights Watch that they were denied access to lawyers. Said Erkin:

I asked them [the authorities] if I can hire a lawyer and they said, ‘No, you shouldn’t need a lawyer because you’re not convicted. There’s no need to defend you against anything, you’re in a political education camp. All you have to do is just study.’[111]

Detainees said they were allowed brief calls to their families in Xinjiang, but their conversations were severely restricted. Rustan said that in the political education camps:

We weren't allowed to meet with relatives. But once a week we were allowed to make a call for five minutes during which we were not allowed to say anything bad about our situation or else your line would be cut. And police offices are standing right next to you.[112]

Detainees in some camps were allowed to have brief phone calls with their families. Medina said:

At the end of every month, my brother went to the government and asked for permission to see his brother-in-law, but they don’t get to see him in person, only through the video. He can also call them every week.[113]

Deaths in Custody, Torture, and Mistreatment

Radio Free Asia English service has reported four deaths in political education camps in 2018 (see Table 2).[114] While Human Rights Watch is unable to independently verify these four cases, one interviewee told us of the suspicious death of his father in a camp that shares many characteristics with those reported by RFA. Through a contact – whom he arranged to travel to meet his wife and mother – he learned that:

My father died last year [in 2017] in a political education camp in [southern Xinjiang]…. my mother was given his corpse…. They delivered his body in the evening…. They told my mother that he should be buried that night without prayer. The next day at night, people close to us buried him. In the back, [five members of] the Chinese security services watched with the military…. The Chinese did not allow to bathe the body. Even the Muslim way to wash it was not given. Prayer … was not even permitted to be read…. there were bruises on his body from beatings. But the authorities said that he died of heart failure. He was 63-years-old. He was very religious and a good person.[115]

It is unclear how many people have died in political education camps and under what circumstances. Chinese authorities have not acknowledged any of these deaths.

Table 2: Deaths in Political Education Camps in 2018 as reported by

Radio Free Asia English Service Name Age Ethnicity Location RFA Reported Circumstances RFA Report Date Yaqupjan Naman 17 Uyghur Yekshenbe Bazar township, Yopurgha (Yuepuhu) county, Kashgar Authorities did not provide a cause of death and forced the family to bury his body under police supervision. March 14, 2018 Abdughappar Abdujappar 34 Uyghur Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Died after getting sick in detention. April 12, 2018 Unnamed Unknown (only that she was “elderly”) Uyghur Yamachang camp in Bayanday township, Ghulja (Yining) county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Died as a result of being “unable to cope with the pressure and terrible conditions” at the facility. May 24, 2018 Abdulreshit Seley Hajim 65 Uyghur Nilqa County, Ghulja (Yining) county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Family quoted: “people who saw his corpse told us that he was hit with a blunt object on his head and his head was wrapped with a piece of white cloth. Our relatives were not allowed to see his head at all.” June 8, 2018

Former interviewees told Human Rights Watch about the use of physical and psychological punishments; ill-treatment of or lack of medical care for people particularly vulnerable to harsh detention conditions; and suicide attempts.

All four former detainees who spoke to Human Rights Watch said they experienced a high level of psychological stress in the political education camps. This is partly because of the lack of clarity over how long they would be held there. Said Rustam:

[T]he worst thing was there was no clarity for when this will all end, and it was the same for others. Some people in the political education camps have been there for over a year even when they were told at the beginning that they would just be there for 20 days.… You either die there, or you go crazy. Two people did go mad, including a young man in his 20s. Every day, I had to tell myself that I have to survive, I must not go crazy, I pray silently inside myself.[116]

Two of the detainees – Erkin and Ehmet – said they had attempted suicide. Erkin said:

I had Chinese clothes with a collar and I said, ‘I’m going to go to the bathroom,’ and I cut a piece of the clothes and tried to strangle myself with it. But my hands weren’t as strong as they used to be, so I didn’t expect that I wasn’t able to tighten it enough [to kill myself]. They must be watching me through the camera as they came in within one minute.[117]

Ehmet said he also tried to kill himself:

I couldn't bear it anymore. I hit my head on the wall and I had the feeling of powerless, helplessness, and rage. I lost consciousness and when I woke up I was in a doctor's room. They had taken me to a hospital. So, they examined me and said my head was seriously injured. The guard said, ‘We're going to sentence you for another seven years for having attempted suicide.’ I wailed.[118]

All four former detainees told Human Rights Watch they experienced or witnessed physical or psychological punishments throughout the course of enforcing “education,” or to punish those who resist it. Said Nur:

I resisted their measures and insisted that I'm a foreigner. They put me in a small solitary confinement cell (禁闭室) … in a space of about 2x2 meters. I was not given any food or drink, my hands were handcuffs in the back, and I had to stand for 24 hours without sleep.[119]

When they came to take me to the political education camp, they made me take off my clothes and they made me walk 50 meters naked, with my legs chained and my one hand holding the chains…. [Later] I had to make the bed in a very precise manner, like in the military. The head of the facility had an inspection in the morning and he told me to redo the bed three times. I then threw my blanket onto the floor. Four guards came, and they took me to [a room] where I was put in a metal outfit. In that outfit you can't bend your head for 12 hours and it was hot and horrible and after that, I became very obedient.[120]

Click to expand Image Satellite imagery of a political education camp in Hami, Xinjiang. It was converted from a disease control center. © 2018 Shawn Zhang

Ehmet said:

Erkin was repeatedly punished for challenging the authorities over his being wrongfully detained and about the treatment of others:

I was so angry, I hit one of the men [in the political education camp], and they put me in solitary confinement which is basically a well about 1.8 meters deep and maybe 80 or so centimeters wide. It’s very narrow and you can’t move. It was cold in winter and they poured water. My hands were chained, and I couldn’t lower them. I fainted. They took me out of there and put me in bed….

We were instructed to learn a song in seven days. And if you don’t learn it within seven days then you’ll be given no food for another seven days. I said, I already lived through seven days [while] chained, I should be able to survive seven days without food. The Han guard says, ‘Do not even say you’ve been chained, because you’re lying, you’ve never been chained.’

[The guards] then cut the hair of the girls. There were some girls with long braided hair [but it was] all cut. [The girls…] thought they were going to be released. The girls were all smiling and happy [when they went out] … but they came back crying and wailing. I was crying with them. I was against this, and I said, ‘Why did you do this?’ The guards said, ‘Why do you care about women’s hair?’ I must have cursed the guards and … they made me stand up straight for 24 hours…. There were many days when I was punished by standing up for 24 hours.

[T]he guards then moved 580 people to another camp. They put black hoods on us as we were transferred to another political education center…. The guards started kicking me once I entered the other facility….

I saw [other people being beaten] but I didn’t know their names. I saw a mix of people, including a Han … being kicked. [121]

All five former detainees who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that elderly people, in their 60s and 70s, and even 80s, were held in the camps. One reported that there were children in their teens; another saw women who were pregnant or breastfeeding. Two said people with disabilities – people with difficulties walking or seeing, particularly among the elderly – were being held in the camps. Erkin said:

People with walking sticks and can’t walk – and they would be carried around. There was a woman with a young baby she would breastfeed her baby and they would take the baby away and she would continue her education. There was another woman … and she was pregnant.[122]

Some detainees are held even though they were very ill. Detainees said the political education camps do provide some basic level of health care, though they did not find it adequate. Nur said:

In the political education camp, there was this one guy who was so ill – he had a kidney condition in which his urine turned red and needed to be operated on, and he had a surgery scheduled but they wouldn’t let him out. My brother too, is seriously ill, but they haven’t released him.[123]

Said Sophia:

My daughter has [details omitted] tumors and she had to have surgery to remove them … but they still detained her.… I sent them her medical record, and they brought her for a medical checkup, but the hospital didn’t give her adequate treatment. They just said she’s OK, and she was brought back to detention.[124]

Two detainees reported overcrowding to Human Rights Watch. Erkin said:

Suddenly the number of detainees increased and there were times when I had to share beds with another person on the same bed.… [T]he room was as big as this [about 18 square meters] with 25 people.... There were not enough dishes, so we fought for plates and cups and fights were frequent there.[125]

Nur said:

Initially there were 700 to 800 people but a few weeks later it became 1,500…. [I]n the last couple days I was there from the morning until the night they kept bringing people in, young and old people wearing uniforms…. It was crowded – some of the people were made to keep watch while others slept, and we took turns sleeping.

It appeared to the interviewees that the authorities have been moving detainees to newly built political education camps because of increased detainee population and overcrowding.[126]

The former detainees said that the combination of arbitrary detention, stress, and physical and psychological punishments had left lasting health impacts on them. Said Erkin:

There were many people there who told me that my beliefs were wrong. The facility was very cold and I was wearing light clothes. I lost weight and I was like skin and bones…. My health was very good [before] … after the political education camp, my health has deteriorated. I [now] have headaches and my legs ache…. I developed memory problems: I would remember some things today, but I would forget them tomorrow.[127]

Erkin told Human Rights Watch that the faces and scenes in the camps kept haunting him:

I want not to think about it, I don’t want to recall it. Because once I start thinking about it I can’t stop it. I want to push it out.… I can’t work, and I’m incapacitated. My mother is old, and I have to look after her, and we have no money and I have memory loss.

Said Nur:

After all that, it’s as if I've changed into another person. My memory has gotten poor. I do not want sex anymore. I have inflamed joints and nose, as well as high blood pressure.… My psychological health was particularly impacted. There was this horrible noise inside the detention center and the political education camp that made me feel very bad. They said it was the transmitter, but it made me feel really bad, and I can still hear it in my ear.[128]

Entire Families Taken Some people from Kashgar and Hotan told Human Rights Watch that half, or all, of their immediate family members were in some form of political education, detention, or imprisonment. Hoshur, who is originally from southern Xinjiang, was studying abroad in one of the 26 countries listed as problematic by the Xinjiang authorities. Two of his five siblings had been sent to political education in 2017. They are a 29-year-old farmer and a 21-year-old fruit seller. His mother was detained for peaceful behavior five years ago: My mother was arrested [in March 2018]. According to information from my family, she’s in a detention center and [was] charged with ‘attending a religious gathering’ at our neighbors’. When my neighbor passed away, women gathered at the neighbor’s house, maybe they cited the Quran … the gathering happened in 2013. About 20 elderly women in their 60s were arrested by the authorities…. My sister’s husband was sentenced to prison in the summer of 2017 to five years. He was among 60 people in a small village, and their crime was ‘listening to religious speech at a mosque.’ The speech was delivered by an ‘illegal religious scholar.’ [My brother-in-law]’s not a religious person. He smokes, and he rarely prays, but just for attending one religious speech three, four years ago, he was sentenced.[129] Members of Turkic Muslim communities who spoke to Human Rights Watch conveyed a heavy sense of fear. Ainagul, 52, told Human Rights Watch, “Right in front of my eyes, people were being disappeared.”[130] Some Xinjiang residents said they would prepare warm clothes in a go-bag: “if anyone knocks on the door I’d put on my clothes first before opening the door.”[131]

III. Everyday Repression in Xinjiang

We have no rights in Xinjiang…. They scare us so much. Living there changes your way of being. You become afraid of [people in] uniforms, you’re afraid of telling the truth, you’re afraid of praying, you’re afraid of being a Muslim.

—Gulshaim, mother of two, who left Xinjiang in October 2017, May 2018

In my entire life I’ve been scrutinized.… But the implementation of all the high-tech things and swiping IDs everywhere, that was new…. In 2016, they would check your ID in big crowded places.…if you see officers ahead, you take a different route and they don’t bother crossing the road to check you. That’s been upgraded to something you can’t escape.

—Alim, former detainee, May 2018

The extraordinary restrictions on personal life for Turkic Muslims throughout Xinjiang is not limited to detention facilities. The government imposes pervasive and constant surveillance alongside persistent political indoctrination.

Restrictions on Freedom of Movement

When my driver and I travelled, I had to inform the police in the locations where our hukous [household registration permits] are registered to get written permissions. We’d have to tell them where we’re going, what we’re doing, who we’re seeing, how many days we’re gone, and the information of the families we’re visiting. They’d have to investigate before they’d issue the permissions. I’d also have to tell my family where I’m going to, [for them] to inform the police and get authorized by the neighborhood office there. And if the authorities there also agree, [only] then we can go.[132]

—Tohti, who left Xinjiang in 2017, March 2018

In Xinjiang, the authorities arbitrarily restrict the movements of Turkic Muslims’ through a combination of administrative measures, checkpoints, and controls over access to passports.

Several people told Human Rights Watch that they had to apply for permission from the police or the neighborhood office – the lowest level government office – to leave the area where they reside:

Even to leave the village we had to apply to the neighborhood office, and in addition, there are checkpoints along the way [to where you want to go].[133]

Every Uyghur from southern Xinjiang has to ‘apply to go on holiday’ from the neighborhood office if they have to travel outside [of their locales]. In spring of 2017, my mother came from [a city in southern Xinjiang] to visit me. She was able to take 15 days of ‘holiday.’ But then in June, she was only allowed three days upon permission. And my mom is a retired worker in her 70s.[134]

My mom has a heart condition and she needs to go to the hospital in Urumqi, but the officials in the neighborhood office wouldn’t let her leave.[135]

It is unclear whether this approval system is applied across the whole region, though interviewees from both northern and southern Xinjiang described being subjected to similar requirements. In some cases, the approval requirement appears to be applied more stringently to former detainees and families of detainees:

[My daughter’s] been released but since then she has not been allowed to leave the location where her hukou is registered…. She has to report to the neighborhood office regularly…. When my daughter was in there, my ex-husband had to go every day to the neighborhood office to report because he too became a ‘focus personnel’ [a catchall term for those whom authorities deem threatening]; if he had to go and visit his mother – who lives three hours away, he had to get permission from the neighborhood office.[136]

Checkpoints augmented with access to police databases act as another system to control movements:

When my family and I were entering Urumqi after I was released.… the machines went ‘dududu’ when our IDs were swiped. They called me into the office and asked us what crimes we have committed and why we are flagged, and they called our police station; our police explain that I and my family have been blacklisted because I was a [foreign] national and because I was detained. [My family] said their ID cards start making noise when going through the checkpoints ever since I was taken away.[137]

Checkpoints allow the authorities to control where exactly someone can go. Former detainee Alim reported being barred from public places, in addition to not being allowed out of his hukou area:

Everywhere in Xinjiang there were checkpoints.… I was entering a mall, and an orange alarm went off ... I didn’t feel that well. I have a bit of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder … [so] I said [to my friend], ‘I’m going home.’ But at the exit, the police already arrived, and they escorted me to the police station. I said to them, ‘I was in the detention center and you guys released me because I was innocent…’ The police [at the police station] told me just ‘don’t go to any public places.’ I said, ‘It was fine for the first week and I was able to go places.’ The police said, ‘They update the list every day.’ I said, ‘What do I do now? Just stay home?’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s better than this, right?’[138]

Similarly, Tohti, who left Xinjiang in 2017, told Human Rights Watch:

Once I went out of [the city where I live] in late 2016. When I swiped my ID card through the machines, they gave out a warning and a light. The police told me to come over, where I was subjected to body check and they questioned me, asking me why I had to go there and who I was … when I got to the neighboring city I had to report to the police there. The police there called to the police responsible for me to check if I was a dangerous person.[139]

Tohti said police did not explain to him why he was stopped, and he was too afraid to ask.

The interviewees’ descriptions of the way these checkpoints function dovetail with previous Human Rights Watch findings that these checkpoints are connected with the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) big data system, which flags a range of “unusual behaviors” along with a focus on people’s relationship networks.[140] According to official reports, these checkpoints transmit information to the IJOP, and “receive, in real time, predictive warnings pushed by the IJOP” so they can “identify targets … for checks and control.”

The movement restrictions described by interviewees appear to be an extension of a previous system instituted in Xinjiang between May 2014 – at the start of the Strike Hard Campaign – and May 2016. During that period, Xinjiang residents over the age of 16 were required to apply for “convenience cards” (便民卡) to travel and stay outside of areas in which their hukous are registered.[141] This internal passport system was abolished in May 2016 and replaced by the current systems of administrative approval and automated checkpoints.

Restrictions on Access to Passports

The Xinjiang authorities have, since around October 2016, prevented Turkic Muslims from leaving the country by requiring that they hand in their passports. Some did so without “thinking much of it”[142] while others were very reluctant as they were already making plans to flee Xinjiang. While it is possible to get them back, people described the process as a bureaucratic nightmare:

In June 2017, they took away … passports.… I said my daughter was ill and I had to apply to get my passport back and I paid the police. Many people gave police money to get their passports back. They refused to give it back the first time.… I went to every connection of mine to try to get my passport back.… The doctors were scared as well…. Eventually I got a medical certificate proving my daughter’s illness, but they still refused to let us have our passports back.… Later, they allowed some exceptions … and I applied again, and eventually, they approved my application.[143]

And in a number of cases, those who got their passports back were only allowed leave for a short period of time and they had to promise to return:

My passport was taken, but we got them back to travel. We had to go to the neighborhood office to sign various papers saying that we won’t participate in any religious activities and afterwards we were allowed 10 days away from the country.[144]

In a number of cases Chinese authorities confiscated people’s residency documents issued by foreign governments, in addition to their PRC passports:

They took away his passport and his residency card [of a foreign country]. He went to the police who said maybe tomorrow we’ll give them back to you, and again, but eventually they told him they’re not going to be giving it back.[145]

A number of interviewees – who have long resided abroad but still hold PRC passports – said Chinese authorities took away their passports without explanation and prevented them from leaving. Aynur said:

When I went to the Chinese authorities in my hometown, they collected our passports and found YouTube and WhatsApp on my phone.… They took our passports and they said, ‘Why don't you stay here [in China] for a while?’ But I told them I can't because my two kids have to go back [to foreign country] to attend school. ‘Don't worry about your kids, we'll arrange the matter’.… The kids are Chinese citizens and they just told me that the kids aren't allowed to go, without any explanation.[146]

Aynur was eventually allowed to leave with her children after spending months in Xinjiang against her will.

Rayana, a 21-year-old student studying abroad, went home to Xinjiang for a summer holiday and, the neighborhood office called her in and took her passport away. She managed to leave after begging the police:

Every day I went to the police station and cried…. Finally, I got through to the head of the local police who said I could go and he authorized the release of my passport, and I was able to leave.[147]

A number of interviewees described their departures from Xinjiang as escapes requiring evading authorities or hiding in a distant family’s home for fear that they would be detained despite trying to leave China legally:

I wanted to come back [to foreign country] and I started the procedures to get my passport back, [the officials] gave me a stack of paper to fill in and get permission to get it back. At the last step, however, they asked me if I had a permanent residency from [a foreign country] and I lied to them [and said no] and they said, ‘OK, you can go’.… I signed my [last document] in the afternoon and right then I left. That day, I … went straight to the border leaving all my clothes [in my home in Xinjiang], and left immediately.[148]

Controls of Long and Short-Term Rentals It is unclear which official documents underpin Xinjiang authorities’ restrictions on people’s movements, but the “369 Limited Time Work Plan” (“369限时工作法”) implemented since 2015 may inform them.[149] It refers to the requirement that anyone who hires or hosts anyone from outside the locale – including businesses, hotels, and landlords of rental homes – must, within three hours of a person arriving, report and register that person with the police. Within six hours, the officials from the community office and police officers must meet with that person, collect their information, and check for anything “suspicious.” Within nine hours, officials must check the person’s background on the network and report the person’s presence to the police where their hukous are located. There are similarly timed requirements for when that person leaves the locale. Anyone who violates this policy faces a monetary fine. Across China it is often difficult for Turkic Muslims to find a place to stay, either temporarily or more permanently. Hotels – the registration systems of which are connected to police databases – frequently refuse to allow anyone who comes from Xinjiang, particularly Turkic Muslims, to book rooms, citing excuses such as having no available room. They have also reported that police would pressure landlords to evict them from their homes. Ilham told Human Rights Watch that, when his family travelled for vacation to another part of China in 2016, not only did they have to obtain the approval of the Xinjiang authorities prior to travel, but when they arrived: The authorities there dispatched a bus for all the Uyghurs on the plane. They bused [my family] to the police station to verify their identities, took their fingerprints, and took photos of them and their luggage. They interrogated them, asking them about their hotel address, when they were planning to go home.… then, when [my family] arrived at the hotel, the police were already there, the owner had to come over too. The authorities told my family, ‘If you go anywhere else from here, tell us first. If you leave to go back, tell us as well.’ That was how they managed us.

Political Indoctrination

The Chinese government has a long tradition of considering those whose thoughts differ from those of the government as suffering from “ideological defects” or as “mentally ill,” and force them to undergo political indoctrination.[150]

Click to expand Image Village officials swear allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party in Kashgar, Xinjiang. © State WeChat account (新疆访惠聚)

Under the Strike Hard Campaign, Turkic Muslims are required to attend a variety of political indoctrination gatherings. Many interviewees said everyone in their community has to attend flag-raising ceremonies with the People’s Republic of China’s national flag on a weekly or daily basis:

[W]e had to attend the flag-raising ceremony every Monday. They made us take off our head scarves for the ceremony and if you didn't, you'd be taken to the political education camps. If you skipped it, or if you disobeyed them you'd be sent to political education. We were required to attend the flag-raising ceremony starting April 2017.[151]

On Monday flag ceremony, you have to show your ID, or if you miss several times in a row, someone would tell on you and then you’d be punished.[152]

Click to expand Image Over 5000 students pledge loyalty to the “Motherland” in a July mass ceremony in Hotan, Xinjiang. © Hotan Prefecture state television

Interviewees also said that following ceremonies are often political meetings during which participants might be required to denounce their families or praise the Communist Party. Said Ilham:

There were flag-raising ceremonies, not only every week, but every day. After that, there would be a meeting, and the neighborhood office would gather everyone. They’d talk about all the good things the government has done for the people … and people have to tell the crowd what their families did, just like during the Cultural Revolution. If your attitude isn’t good, you’d be sent to the political education camp.

Iham also described to Human Rights Watch examples of these denunciations:

[There was a] wife denouncing her husband, an imam who was imprisoned for extremism, … saying something about him propagating Wahhabism[153]; and then a kid who denounces his father for having prayed and read the Quran. [There were also] people who have exceeded the birth quotas, the couple and their kids were crying as the authorities announced the huge fines against them. This is called a ‘Looking Back’ (回头看) exercise, looking back at what bad things people had done in the past 20 years.[154]

Click to expand Image Students sign their names on a banner that reads, among other slogans, “Love the Motherland” in Hotan, Xinjiang. © Hotan Prefecture state television

Alim told Human Rights Watch that the neighborhood office made him deliver a pro-government speech at one such meeting:

People had to read out their speeches, they call it ‘Speak up and Show your Sword’ (发声亮剑), I had to too. It was different people every time. [I wrote] some bullshit: China’s been developing rapidly, that no other country has managed to do that in modern history, we have to thank the Party for our prosperity, we have to fight ‘the three evil forces.’[155]

It appears that additional “educational” or propaganda meetings are arranged for certain categories of people. Alim, released from a detention center, was required to attend meetings on a regular basis together with other college students in Xinjiang. “The content of the meeting varied,” Alim said, including persistent questioning concerning “information about me and my family.”

Click to expand Image People denounce the “three evil forces” in a mass political meeting in Hotan, Xinjiang. © Hotan Prefecture state television

Sofia, mother of a detainee released from political education, said that her daughter was required to attend regular meetings:

She’s been released but since then … [sh