China’s Uighurs given ‘relatives’ in Big-brother-is-watching plan
Analysts say programme puts informants inside living rooms
The Chinese government has launched a programme in its far west which analysts say effectively puts informants inside living rooms, dining areas and prayer spaces, not to mention at funerals, weddings and other occasions once considered intimate and private.
The ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper said last month that 1.1 million civil servants are participating in an initiative which the government says will alleviate poverty and foster ethnic unity between the majority Han Chinese and Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
Five Uighurs living in exile in Istanbul shared the expericorners ence of family members who have had to host Han Chinese civil servants in Xinjiang.
While government notices about the “Pair Up and Become Family” programme portray it as an affectionate cultural exchange, Uighurs living in exile in Turkey said that their loved ones saw the Homestay campaign as a chilling intrusion into the only place that they once felt safe.
They believe the programme is aimed at coercing Uighurs into living secular lives like the Han majority.
Anything diverging from the party’s prescribed lifestyle can be viewed by authorities as a sign of potential extremism - from suddenly giving up smoking or alcohol, to having an “abnormal” beard or an overly religious name.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Uighur homeland has been blanketed with stifling surveillance, from armed checkpoints on street to facial-recognition equipped CCTV cameras steadily surveying passers-by.
Now, Uighurs say, they must live under the watchful eye of the ruling Communist Party even inside their own homes.
“The government is trying to destroy that last protected space in which Uighurs have been able to maintain their identity,” said Joanne Smith Finley, an ethnographer at England’s Newcastle University.
The accounts of Uighurs living in Istanbul are based on prior communications with their family members, the majority of whom have since cut off contact because Uighurs can be punished for speaking to people abroad.
The Uighurs abroad said their loved ones were constantly on edge in their own homes, knowing that any misstep - a misplaced Koran, a carelessly spoken word - could lead to detention or worse.
In the presence of these faux relatives, their family members could not pray or wear religious garbs, and the cadres were privy to their every move.
The thought of it - and the sight of his sister, the old woman and their false smiles - made Idris queasy.
“I wanted to throw up,” said the 49-year-old petroleum engineer, shaking his head in disgust.
“The moment I saw the old woman, I thought, `Ugh, this person is our enemy.’
“If your enemy became your mother, think about it - how would you feel?”
Tensions between Muslim minorities and Han Chinese have bubbled over in recent years resulting in violent attacks pegged to Uighur separatists.