Several reports have suggested that Muslim women whose husbands have been detained in Chinese concentration camps are being forced to share beds with male government officials. These men have been appointed to closely monitor the homes of Uyghur Muslims.
Sources informed Radio Free Asia (RFA) that Communist party workers would frequently sleep alongside female members of the Uyghur community as part of surveillance visits which last up to a week.
This latest revelation is not new and forms part of a wide scale systemic repression and persecution of Uyghur Muslims. Several human rights organisations and experts have raised concerns surrounding the Chinese government’s actions against the minority community.
According to UN experts and activists, China is holding over one million people, particularly Uyghur Muslims, in detention centres. However, China describes these camps as “re-education camps” aiming to “stamp out ‘extremism’ and give [Uyghur Muslims] new skills.”
The Uyghur Muslims that are not detained and thrown into concentration camps and are instead faced with scrutiny from the security forces. This includes but is not limited to armed checkpoints, ID cards and facial recognition cameras.
China is said to have also deployed over a million spies to closely monitor the activity of Uyghur Muslims. According to a Communist party officer, the spies visit Uyghur households and during their visits they work, eat, and frequently share a bed with their “hosts”.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officer who oversees between 70 to 80 Uyghur families, Yengisar county said, “They stay with their paired relatives day and night”.
He added that “normally one or two people sleep in one bed, and if the weather is cold, three people sleep together”.
China’s ‘Xinjiang’ region is home to some 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which accounts for roughly 45% of ‘Xinjiang’s’ total population, has long accused the Chinese authorities of political, economic, and cultural discrimination.
Over the last two years, China has subjected the region to increasingly draconian restrictions, including banning men from growing beards and women from wearing veils. The country has also introduced, what many observers see as, the world’s most extensive electronic surveillance program, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, as least one million people – roughly 7% of Xinjiang’s Muslim population – have been incarcerated in an ever-expanding network of “political re-education” camps, according to both US and UN officials.
May Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) free all of our brothers and sisters from oppression, forgive our shortcomings and give us the tawfīq to get to work. Āmīn.
Read Also:
China’s Concentration Camps: What Can We Do?
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Source: www.islam21c.com
Notes:
[4] https://www.islam21c.com/news-views/prominent-uyghur-writer-dies-at-chinese-internment-camp/
