Thousands of Xinjiang mosques destroyed or damaged, report finds

[suryakiran]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-mosques-destroyed-damaged-china-report-finds

Chinese region has fewer mosques and shrines than at any time since Cultural Revolution, says thinktank

A Chinese flag flies over a mosque closed by authorities in the old town of Kashgar. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Helen Davidson

@heldavidson
Fri 25 Sep 2020 08.31 BST
Last modified on Fri 25 Sep 2020 16.53 BST

Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang have been damaged or destroyed in just three years, leaving fewer in the region than at any time since the Cultural Revolution, according to a report on Chinese oppression of Muslim minorities.

The revelations are contained in an expansive data project by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which used satellite imagery and on-the-ground reporting to map the extensive and continuing construction of detention camps and destruction of cultural and religious sites in the north-western region.

Nanyuan Street mosque - 2017 and 2018
The thinktank said Chinese government claims that there were more than 24,000 mosques in Xinjiang and that it was committed to protecting and respecting religious beliefs were not supported by the findings, and estimated that fewer than 15,000 mosques remained standing – with more than half of those damaged to some extent.

“This is the lowest number since the Cultural Revolution, when fewer than 3,000 mosques remained,” the report said.


China has built 380 internment camps in Xinjiang, study finds
Read more
It found around two-thirds of the area’s mosques were affected, and about 50% of protected cultural sites had been damaged or destroyed, including the total destruction of Ordam mazar (shrine), an ancient site of pilgrimage dating back to the 10th century.

Since 2017, an estimated 30% of mosques had been demolished, and another 30% damaged in some way, including the removal of architectural features such as minarets or domes, the report said. While the majority of sites remained as empty lots, others were turned into roads and car parks or converted for agricultural use, the report said.

Ordam mazar – Satellite images from 2013 and 2019
Some were razed to the ground and rebuilt at a fraction of their former size, including Kashgar’s Grand Mosque, built in 1540 and granted the second-highest level of historic protection by Chinese authorities.

Areas that received large numbers of tourists, including the capital, Urumqi, and the city of Kashgar, were outliers, with little destruction recorded, but ASPI said reports from visitors to the cities suggested the majority of mosques were padlocked or had been converted to other uses.

ASPI said it compared recent satellite images with the precise coordinates of more than 900 officially registered religious sites which were recorded prior to the 2017 crackdown, then used sample-based methodology to make “statistically robust estimates” cross-referenced with census data.


Revealed: new evidence of China's mission to raze the mosques of Xinjiang
Read more
Beijing has faced consistent accusations – backed by mounting evidence – of mass human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including the internment of more than a million Uighurs and Turkic Muslims in detention camps, the existence of which it initially denied before claiming they were training and re-education centres. The camps and other accusations of abuse, forced labour, forced sterilisation of women, mass surveillance and restrictions on religious and cultural beliefs have been labelled as cultural genocide by observers.

Beijing strenuously denies the accusations and says its policies in Xinjiang are to counter terrorism and religious extremism, and that its labour programmes are to alleviate poverty and are not forced.

The ASPI report said: “Alongside other coercive efforts to re-engineer Uighur social and cultural life by transforming or eliminating Uighurs’ language, music, homes and even diets, the Chinese government’s policies are actively erasing and altering key elements of their tangible cultural heritage.”

Interventions on minority ethnic cultures and communities have increased under the leadership of Xi Jinping. In recent weeks it was revealed authorities have also vastly expanded a forced labour programme in Tibet, and policies to reduce the use of the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia. Government terminology frequently describes a need to transform the “backwards thinking” of the targeted cultural groups.

@beijingwalker why is China commiting genocide against Muslims? And how come Pooh bear is so scared of Muslims? Is he not the reason why your government is trying to re-educate Muslims by sending them to concentration camps?

@Nilgiri @Raptor

 

[xizhimen]

LOl, Satelite images....

Xinjiang offers real-site photos to debunk satellite images ‘evidence’ of ‘detention centers’​

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/11/27 23:59:53

---

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 38.8367N, 77.7056E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a gerocomium in Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang
Locations that had been marked as "concentration camps" by some Western media and an Australian institute were found to be administration buildings, nursing homes, logistics centers or schools, as Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Friday offered videos and photos to debunk accusations which used satellite images as "evidences."

For a long time, some Western media and institutes, especially the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), have been keen on using satellite images as "evidence" for their claim of Xinjiang's expanding "concentration centers," a term that has been firmly opposed by Chinese authorities.

For example, in a report called "Documenting Xinjiang's Detention System" by ASPI, buildings with outer walls in Xinjiang were all considered as "detention centers."

"This is absurd. As a matter of fact, they [locations marked] are just civil institutions," Eljan Anayt, spokesperson of the Xinjiang regional government, told a press conference in responding to a question from CNN.

The "detention center" (geographic coordinates: 38.9950N, 77.6682E) claimed by ASPI, is actually an elementary school in Yantaq township, Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang
"The 'detention center' of Turpan city mentioned in the report is actually a local administrative building; the 'detention center' of Kashi is, in fact, local high school buildings. They are all marked on Google Maps, Baidu Maps, and I have photos of them," the spokesperson said, showing photos of these locations at the press conference.

Eljan said that those so-called "independent think tanks" like ASPI are not academic research centers, but anti-China tools manipulated by the US government.

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 39.8252N, 78.5501E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a logistics park in Bachu county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang

ASPI has become an infamous institute for manipulating fake news to hype so-called forced labor in Xinjiang. It is also exposed to receive huge amount of money from the US and disgraced itself as being an anti-China tool for the US.

ASPI's "research" is simply subjective fabrications filled with preconceptions and hostility. Their sources and clues were either from American anti-China nongovernmental organizations, or some unverifiable and untraceable "eyewitness evidence," Eljan said, noting that the international community has also denounced such poor performance of confounding black and white and fabricating lies.

"I want to emphasize that Xinjiang is an open region, and there is no need to learn about it through satellite images. We welcome all foreign friends with objective, unbiased stance to come to Xinjiang and to know a real Xinjiang," the spokesperson said.

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 38.9046N, 77.6153E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a middle school in Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang

Xinjiang provides on-site photos to debunk ASPI's satellite images showing so-called 'evidence' of 'detention centers,' shedding light on how foreign organizations produce sensational 'reports' on #Xinjiang to attack China and misinform the public.

 

[suryakiran]

LOl, Satelite images....

Xinjiang offers real-site photos to debunk satellite images ‘evidence’ of ‘detention centers’​

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/11/27 23:59:53

---

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 38.8367N, 77.7056E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a gerocomium in Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang
Locations that had been marked as "concentration camps" by some Western media and an Australian institute were found to be administration buildings, nursing homes, logistics centers or schools, as Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Friday offered videos and photos to debunk accusations which used satellite images as "evidences."

For a long time, some Western media and institutes, especially the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), have been keen on using satellite images as "evidence" for their claim of Xinjiang's expanding "concentration centers," a term that has been firmly opposed by Chinese authorities.

For example, in a report called "Documenting Xinjiang's Detention System" by ASPI, buildings with outer walls in Xinjiang were all considered as "detention centers."

"This is absurd. As a matter of fact, they [locations marked] are just civil institutions," Eljan Anayt, spokesperson of the Xinjiang regional government, told a press conference in responding to a question from CNN.

The "detention center" (geographic coordinates: 38.9950N, 77.6682E) claimed by ASPI, is actually an elementary school in Yantaq township, Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang
"The 'detention center' of Turpan city mentioned in the report is actually a local administrative building; the 'detention center' of Kashi is, in fact, local high school buildings. They are all marked on Google Maps, Baidu Maps, and I have photos of them," the spokesperson said, showing photos of these locations at the press conference.

Eljan said that those so-called "independent think tanks" like ASPI are not academic research centers, but anti-China tools manipulated by the US government.

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 39.8252N, 78.5501E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a logistics park in Bachu county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang

ASPI has become an infamous institute for manipulating fake news to hype so-called forced labor in Xinjiang. It is also exposed to receive huge amount of money from the US and disgraced itself as being an anti-China tool for the US.

ASPI's "research" is simply subjective fabrications filled with preconceptions and hostility. Their sources and clues were either from American anti-China nongovernmental organizations, or some unverifiable and untraceable "eyewitness evidence," Eljan said, noting that the international community has also denounced such poor performance of confounding black and white and fabricating lies.

"I want to emphasize that Xinjiang is an open region, and there is no need to learn about it through satellite images. We welcome all foreign friends with objective, unbiased stance to come to Xinjiang and to know a real Xinjiang," the spokesperson said.

The “detention center” (geographic coordinates: 38.9046N, 77.6153E) claimed by ASPI, is actually a middle school in Markit county, Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang

Xinjiang provides on-site photos to debunk ASPI's satellite images showing so-called 'evidence' of 'detention centers,' shedding light on how foreign organizations produce sensational 'reports' on #Xinjiang to attack China and misinform the public.

So you demolished mosques and created thesse? Wow!

And everyone knows how quickly outside can be changed by the Chinese. Anyone would trust anyone else over Chinese media

But you did not answer, what abou tall the destroyed mosques? An are you denying the existence of re-education camps in Xinjiany being used to re-educate Muslims?

 

[xizhimen]

So you demolished mosques and created thesse? Wow!

Play with your satelite imagines..

 

[xizhimen]

Xinjiang residents debunk rumors of "forced demolition of mosques"
Jul 18, 2020

The so-called "forced demolition of mosques" in Xinjiang is totally nonsense, an official of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said on Friday.

Mehmut Usman, director of the regional ethnic affairs commission, made the comment in response to the 2019 report on international religious freedom issued by the U.S. State Department, which claims that Xinjiang is dismantling mosques.

He told a press conference that as long as venues for religious activities are registered with the government under the law, they have legal status, and all their rights and interests are protected by law. He said the Jami Mosque and Idkah Mosque, which the U.S. State Department report said had been demolished, are well protected.

"Xinjiang has always attached great importance to the protection and repair of mosques, and the governments at all levels in Xinjiang have not only helped and supported the improvement of mosques, but also guaranteed the normal religious needs of religious believers," the official said.

According to the official, some mosques in Xinjiang were built in the 1980s and 1990s and even longer ago, with shabby facilities and potential safety hazards.

"Through new construction, building on the original site of demolition, and expansion measures according to urban-rural construction planning, we have improved the conditions of the mosques and met the needs of the religious believers, which is widely welcomed by religious personages and believers," he said.

Abdukerim Mamut, who works for the Jami Mosque in Xinjiang's Yecheng County, said that the Jami Mosque was originally founded in 1540 and expanded in 1860. It underwent repair in 1937, 2014, and 2019 respectively.

"Considering the long history of the mosque, the government consolidated it in 2019 to provide better and safer services for religious believers," he said.

Elijan Anayit, the spokesperson of the information office of the regional people's government, said at the press conference that the government has no restrictions on ethnic customs of wedding and funeral ceremonies and giving Islamic names.

According to the spokesperson, among ethnic minorities who have the habit of burial, the government does not promote cremation. Instead, it takes specific measures to protect their custom, such as allocating special land for cemeteries.

As for the U.S. report claim that "the Sulitan cemetery in Hotan and the cemetery of Tazhong road in Aksu have been destroyed," the spokesperson said the report calls white black. "The cemeteries have not been destroyed, but rather well protected."

 

[xizhimen]

The Case of the Keriya Aitika Mosque

I am a Chicago-based Chinese working in an American bank holding company, spending all my college years in the United States. However, I care about my home country very much, especially when it is being smeared and slandered.
One year ago, there was a rash of articles in the media with the same claim that China had been on a massive, targeted campaign to destroy mosques in Xinjiang.
At first, Shawn Zhang posted a tweet on April 2 last year claiming that Keriya Eitika Mosque had been demolished. Weeks later, Zhang clarified that this mosque was actually a recently built gatehouse that had been removed, and the 800-year-old mosque was intact (and much larger than the image he showed).

The screenshot of Shawn Zhang's tweet.
Although the mistake has been clarified, the mosque-demolition narrative has soon taken on a life of its own as a number of mainstream media outlets began to pick up on the story, many of which even disregarded the fact that Zhang was mistaken.
After these images were used as "positive evidence" to denounce the Chinese government for religious repression, they and the Keriya Aitika Mosque story largely faded from public view. The media moved on to new sensational claims about Xinjiang, shifting gears every few weeks in search of something that would stick.
Given the lack of follow-up, I thought I would revisit the Keriya Aitika Mosque situation myself to provide an update. Readers are encouraged to follow along on Google Earth – the coordinates for the mosque are 36°51'08.75" N, 81°40'18.08"E.
Below is one of the images of Keriya Aitika from May 2017, before the northern gatehouse was removed. You may notice that there's not much surrounding the mosque itself – the land on the south and east sides is basically empty.

Google Earth image, May, 2017
Fast forward to April 2019, when we started to see these claims being made. The northern gatehouse has been removed, and there appears to be just an empty spot where it once stood. This is the image generally used as "proof".

Google Earth image, April, 2019
The above image looks incriminating that it raised concern if they were in the process of demolishing. Why does it look so barren in front of the mosque? But lost in focus on the northern gatehouse is everything else going on -the new construction of buildings to the south and east as well as the expansion of roads around the mosque.
When we come back to Keriya Aitika Mosque in March 2020, everything has taken shape. The area to the north is a circular plaza with steps leading to the prayer hall. The southern gatehouse overlooks a new plaza and has been connected to a wall that extends around the mosque.
The buildings to the east have sets of minarets, which certain media outlets even claimed were banned in Xinjiang. There's even a parking lot to the west of the mosque for worshipers commuting from further away.

Google Earth image, March, 2020

Were the above image put side by side with the May 2017 image, it's unlikely that anyone would draw the conclusion that the Keriya Aitika Mosque was being targeted for demolition. The use of satellite imagery is massively misleading – renovation and construction can easily look like destruction.
It's no surprise that this narrative disappeared soon after – it would not support their story for people to go on Google Earth today and see for themselves.
I encourage readers to apply a level of skepticism to the claims some Western media make about Xinjiang. The speed at which narratives are built and then discarded, as well as their type, point to something that remains persistent: not earnest reporting of the facts, but a political purpose.
Going back to claims made a year ago leads us to conclusions radically different, even opposite, from the original reporting, as we can see with the case of the Keriya Aitika Mosque.

 

[suryakiran]

Poor Muslims and their families who are being threatened by the Chinese state will state whatever they are being told. Don't post chinese propaganda.

Are you denying the existence of re-education camps in China targetting the poor Muslims in Xinjiang. Committing genocide on them.

Show me 15,000 areas of the mosques demolished. Researchers outside can make few mistakes, when the number of mosques demolished is as high as that.

You do not even allow free access to Xinjiang for reporters. Everything you are stating is propaganda. Nothing else.

 

[xizhimen]

You do not even allow free access to Xinjiang for reporters. Everything you are stating is propaganda. Nothing else.

Who told you that? we allow foreign tourists and reporters in Xinjiang, actually tons of Indian students study in various Xinjiang universities. We don't see loads of Chinese students study in Kashmir...

 

[xizhimen]

Xinjiang Medical University Canteens Serve Indian foods

Tons of students from South and Central Asia study in medical schools in Xinjiang

 

[xizhimen]

China is mostly an atheist country, we don't love nor hate any particular religions, cause religion is never a big part of our life and culture, not like Indians, they just hate Muslims for being Muslims. China only targets separarists and terrorists, regardless of their backgrounds.

 

[suryakiran]

Who told you that? we allow foreign tourists and reporters in Xinjiang, actually tons of Indian students study in various Xinjiang universities. We don't see loads of Chinese students study in Kashmir...

Why It's So Difficult for Journalists To Report From Xinjiang​

This picture taken on June 25, 2017 shows police patrolling in a night food market near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a day before the Eid al-Fitr holiday. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

Since 2016, the Chinese government has detained more than one million Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority native to the Xinjiang region, in euphemistically-named “patriotic re-education camps” — part of a sweeping effort to Sinicize the region. In cities across Xinjiang, a geographic area more than twice the size of Texas, Uighurs are subject to pervasive surveillance from technology like facial recognition software and ubiquitous plainclothes police officers. More than one million Uighur homes now include Han Chinese residents tasked with supervising their “re-education.”
The Chinese government has characterized the camps as voluntary educational facilities designed for job training, a claim Uighurs and rights activists contest. But Beijing has nevertheless taken extensive measures to prevent international media from reporting on the camps.
Yanan Wang, a China-based journalist from the Associated Press, has reported extensively on and from Xinjiang. In a ceremony at Asia Society on Tuesday commemorating AP’s 2019 Osborn Elliott Award for Excellence in Journalism on Asia , Wang described the subtle ways government minders worked to thwart her reporting:

Both of the times we went there we arrived at the airport, we had a welcoming committee from the local authorities. They’re always very polite and professional. They say that “you’ve arrived in Xinjiang and we’re here to assist you in your reporting. Tell us what you’re working on so we can help you.” They offer us drives in their car and plenty of hospitality. Basically, from the moment we arrive, we’re followed by at least one car. There are a bunch of interesting scenarios that we came across. You can see that the local handlers are trying hard to be professional. They are members of the propaganda department, so they’re PR professionals. They don’t want to make it appear like it’s so stifling. At one point, we were taking photos and someone suddenly appeared on the scene to say he was a “concerned citizen.” He said he’d seen us taking photos and that it was an infringement of his privacy rights. He had this long monologue about privacy rights and about how it wasn’t right for us to take photos of him without his knowledge. We asked him, “Well, where are you in these photos?” and he’d go through all of them. He said we had to delete all of them. He’d say, “This is my brother,” or “This is my place of work, you have to delete it.” They had all of these interesting tactics to work around the idea that they were trying to obstruct our reporting and make it appear that someone who claims to be a concerned citizen.

The Chinese government has punished Uighurs brave enough to speak to foreign journalists, depriving reporters of sources with knowledge of what’s going on. In an Asia Society program on Xinjiang last October, Foreign Policy editor James Palmer broke down when he described how his Uighur contacts have disappeared.

“All of my Uighur sources are gone,” he said. “I can’t talk to people because they’re gone. I cannot reach them. Even Han Chinese in Xinjiang who were sources for people I knew have been arrested while talking to them.”
Palmer said that he hesitates to contact Uighur sources because doing so places them at risk.
“While for most areas this isn’t so bad, every Western journalist and every Chinese journalist has seen every source move from … the people who would talk to us on the record will now only talk to us off the record, while the people who would only talk to us off the record won’t talk to us at all,” he added. “And that’s across the board in China. That’s on every topic.”
These restrictions have made the reporting that has come out especially remarkable. Wang and Palmer use tools such as open source data, satellite photography, and government procurement records to piece together the truth in Xinjiang.
Even still, journalists must contend with a concerted effort from the Chinese government to impede coverage of the situation. At Tuesday’s award ceremony, an official from China’s consulate in New York said that the country’s current Xinjiang policy resulted from years of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang that claimed thousands of Chinese lives. Since the more extreme measures were implemented, the official said, these attacks have stopped. Aren’t the journalists failing to report the full story?
Wang noted that her reports always cited this perspective. “We would very much like to gauge what the Chinese population thinks about these policies,” she added. “Do you have any suggestions about how we can do that?”
Watch the complete video of the 2019 Oz Elliott Prize ceremony below:

 

[suryakiran]

China’s pressure and propaganda - the reality of reporting Xinjiang​

By John Sudworth
BBC News, Beijing

Published
15 January

image captionThe BBC team were followed and had their footage deleted
In addition to the heavy restrictions it places on foreign journalists trying to report the truth about its far western region of Xinjiang, China has a new tactic: labelling independent coverage as "fake news".
At night, while travelling for hours along Xinjiang's desert highways, the unmarked cars that had been following us from the moment we arrived would tailgate us at speed, driving dangerously close with their headlights on full beam.
Their occupants - who never identified themselves - forced us to leave one city by chasing us out of restaurants and shops, ordering the owners not to serve us.
The report we produced, despite these difficulties, contained new evidence - much of it based on China's own policy documents - that thousands of Uighurs and other minorities are being forced to pick cotton in a region responsible for a fifth of the world's crop.

• China's tainted cotton

But now China's Communist Party-run media have produced their own report about our reporting, accusing the BBC of exaggerating these efforts by the authorities to obstruct our team and calling it "fake news".
The video, made by the China Daily - an English-language newspaper - has been posted on both Chinese social media sites, as well as international platforms banned in China.

image captionCotton picking in Xinjiang provides a fifth of the world's crop
Hannah Bailey, who specialises in China's use of state-sponsored digital disinformation at the Oxford Internet Institute, suggests that such a fiercely critical attack in English, but with Chinese subtitles, makes it unusual.
"It has clearly been produced with both international and domestic users in mind," she told me, "which is somewhat of a departure from previous strategies.
"Previous content produced for mainland audiences has been more critical of Western countries, and more vocally nationalistic, whereas content produced for international audiences has struck a more conciliatory tone."
The China Daily report focuses on an altercation outside the front gate of a textile factory in the city of Kuqa, where the BBC team was surrounded by a group of managers and local officials.

image captionThe BBC went to film outside the vast Kuqa textile factory
The allegations it contains, based on body camera recordings provided by the police who arrived at the scene, are easily dismissed. A polite exchange between our team and a police officer is used to suggest that the BBC exaggerated the role of the authorities in preventing us from reporting.
But the China Daily chooses not to mention that some of our footage was forcibly deleted and we were made to accompany the same police officer to another location so she could review the remaining pictures. And it provides no explanation of the wider context, nor gives the BBC any right of reply.

Over a period of less than 72 hours in Xinjiang we were followed constantly and, on five separate occasions, approached by people who attempted to stop us from filming in public, sometimes violently.

In at least two instances, we were accused of breaching the privacy of these individuals on the basis that their attempts to stop us had led them to walk in front of our camera.
The uniformed police officers attending these "incidents" twice deleted our footage and, on another occasion, we were briefly held by local officials who claimed we'd infringed a farmer's rights by filming a field.
China's propaganda efforts may be a sign of just how damaging it believes the coverage of Xinjiang has been to its international reputation.
But attempting to attack the - usually censored - Western media at home carries some risk, in that it can reveal glimpses of stories that would otherwise remain out of the public domain.
A satellite photo, dated May 2019, shows a large group of people being moved between the Kuqa textile factory and a re-education camp located next door, complete with a watchtower and internal security walls.

The China Daily, which refers to the camp by the official terminology as a "Vocational Training Centre" suggests our attempt to film was pointless because, they say, it closed in October 2019.
If true, this simply proves that the camp was operational when the image was taken - and confirms it to be compelling grounds for further investigation.
Now Chinese and Western audiences alike can ponder who the people in the photograph were, why they were being moved between the camp and the factory and whether any work they did there was likely to be fully voluntary.

More coverage of China's hidden camps​

• The long read: China's hidden camps
• Explainer: China's Muslim 'crackdown'
• Searching for truth in China's 're-education' camps
• China denies Muslim children separation campaign

In an interview with one of the uniformed police officers who provided the body camera recordings, the China Daily video inadvertently provides corroboration of just how well-planned and multi-layered the control of journalists in Xinjiang really is.
The officer confirms that, shortly after our arrival in Kuqa, she summoned us to a meeting in our hotel lobby to issue a warning about "our rights and restrictions".
In fact, hotel staff told us we were forbidden to leave the hotel until after this meeting had taken place.
It was also attended by two propaganda officials who were assigned to accompany us for the rest of our time in Kuqa - adding one more car to the long line that followed us wherever we went.
Far from being fake news, our evidence, along with the post-publication propaganda designed to undermine it, is proof of a co-ordinated effort to control the narrative, extending from the shadowy minders in unmarked cars, all the way up to the national government.

image source, Reuters
image captionUp to a million Muslims are thought to have been detained in camps across Xinjiang
Upon our return to Beijing we were summoned to a meeting with officials who insisted that we should have sought permission from the owners of the factory before filming it.
We pointed out that China's own media regulations do not prohibit the filming of a building from a public road.
China is increasingly using the accreditation process for foreign journalists as a tool of control, issuing shortened visas and threats of non-renewal for those whose coverage it disapproves of.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Following publication, I was given another shortened visa with the authorities making clear that it was as a result of my reporting on Xinjiang.

• M&S signs call to action over Uighur forced labour
• UK business 'must wake up' to China's Uighur cotton slaves
• Uighurs: China rebuffs Pope's criticism as 'groundless'

The China Daily also accuses the BBC of using a hidden camera - we didn't.
And it misrepresents the recording from the police body cameras by suggesting a comment made by BBC producer Kathy Long outside the factory, that we wouldn't use images of one man, were instead made in regard to someone else.
Presuming they're in possession of the full recording it is hard to understand how this mistake could be made.
Hannah Bailey from the Oxford Internet Institute says, like China's domestic propaganda, its international push-back may be becoming "increasingly critical and defensive".
"China has previously demonstrated its use of a variety of tools to manipulate international and domestic discourse, from Twitter bots to state-controlled international media outlets to the vocal so-called "Wolf Warrior" diplomats," she told me.
"Attempts to discredit foreign media are also a part of this toolkit."
We offered the China Daily the opportunity to comment on the errors in its reporting.
In a reply, which failed to address our specific questions, it said that having visited Xinjiang and conducted interviews it has concluded that "there is no forced labour in Xinjiang".
Its propaganda video ends with a worker in the Kuqa textile factory being asked why she's there - a question that comes, she will know full well, from reporters under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party.
"I chose to work here," she tells them.

 

[suryakiran]

Fake tourists and car crashes: How China blocks reporters in Xinjiang​

Issued on: 27/06/2019 - 04:57

Kashgar (China) (AFP)


The three men were so busy staging a fake car crash they failed to notice the very people they were trying to block: foreign journalists heading towards one of China's notorious internment camps.

A small truck slowly inched towards a car parked on the road before stopping -- just short of contact -- as the reporters drove past the scene.

The "accident" later drew a crowd of onlookers as a line of trucks queued down the highway. Police halted traffic, blocking the road leading towards the camp.

Though a botched attempt, this incident illustrates the great lengths Chinese authorities go to obstruct journalists from covering topics deemed sensitive in Xinjiang, a restive northwest region where large numbers of mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up into re-education camps.

On a recent six-day trip to Xinjiang, AFP was able to document three of them -- razor-wired complexes with imposing block buildings.

One was within walking distance of farmland, while another was clearly visible from nearby dwellings. One centre was just around the corner from a water park.

After initially denying their existence, the Chinese government has gone on a public relations blitz to counter the global outcry against what Beijing calls "vocational education centres" ?- and defends as necessary to battle religious extremism.

Since last October, the Xinjiang government has also organised camp tours for diplomats and media outlets.

But it has made independent reporting in the region extremely challenging, with journalists almost constantly followed by plainclothes officials, making it difficult to talk to locals without putting them at risk.

Roadblocks and construction work, which suddenly materialise when reporters near re-education camps, are also a constant headache.

When AFP reporters tried to approach one internment camp in Hotan, roads were roped off within seconds after an unmarked car that had been following them sped ahead.

In the end, the only option was to photograph the camp -- a fenced off compound surrounded by a swath of sand and desert scrub -- from afar.

- Lost tourists -

The security clampdown in Xinjiang, where authorities have implemented unprecedented levels of surveillance, has also made it impossible to move freely around the region.

Police checkpoints at city borders prevented AFP reporters from travelling outside regional hubs without alerting local propaganda officials.

In some cases, whole cities were closed off.

While driving to Artux city, where a mosque is believed to have been destroyed, AFP was forced to turn around by police at a checkpoint who said the road was closed for driving tests -- all day for the next five days.

"Please understand our work," said the police officer.

At the same checkpoint, two women claiming to be tourists also appeared.

For the next hour, they followed AFP in a dark purple van because they were "lost".

Even when AFP reporters went past the fake car crash to take pictures of a camp from a nearby village, the tourists parked close by.

A man who said he was a village security guard later escorted the journalists out. He left the "tourists" alone.

Access to places of religious worship appears tightly controlled.

On the morning of Eid al-Fitr, when Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, the enormous square outside of the main mosque in Kashgar was cordoned off.

Reporters were forced into a "media interview area" on the outer edges of the square as worshippers filed into Idkah Mosque -- whereas in previous years devotees gathered in crowds outside, squeezing together to unroll their prayer rugs.

At a group interview organised by propaganda officials, the mosque's imam said there had not been any "big changes" in prayer attendance compared to five years ago.

"Now that you've come to Xinjiang, you can see there are millions of Uighurs that are all living really well," said Juma Maimaiti, the imam of Idkah Mosque, through an interpreter.

- 'Nameless voices' -

Other foreign news organisations have faced similar challenges while visiting the region.

In a report released by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) in January, journalists from a variety of outlets said they were followed, physically blocked from areas, or even denied hotel rooms.

Nathan VanderKlippe, a reporter at the Canadian paper Globe and Mail, said he was threatened with arrest and had "armed police approach my vehicle with shields raised."

"A police officer seized my camera and deleted pictures without my consent," he told the FCCC, which published his account.

In a piece published earlier this month, Telegraph correspondent Sophia Yan said she and her colleagues had to travel nearly 50 miles on foot, as "nameless voices over the radio instructed taxi drivers to turn around."

And while AFP reporters found local authorities polite albeit unyielding -- perhaps a reaction to the negative press resulting from police aggression -- there were moments on the trip where it became unnervingly clear how closely they were being tracked.

In Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road City with a majority Uighur population, someone broke into an AFP journalist's hotel room after he stepped outside for a few minutes.

Upon returning, he found the door open and one of his bags had been moved.

Nothing was taken, but the message was clear: we are watching you.

 

[xizhimen]

Western Propaganda lies, many foreigners travel in Xinjiang, tons of foreign students study in Xinjiang, Indian students acccount for a large share of them, not even one Muslim country sides with the west against China over Xinjiang, not even Taliban buys it, this hard fact itself shows how pathetic western propaganda works .
Why we see so many Indian students study in Xinjiang and see no Chinese students study in Kashmir? Can you tell me the reason?

 

[xizhimen]

Ambassadors of Palestine and Saudi Arabia talk about their experiences in Xinjiang

 

[xizhimen]

SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov talks about Xinjiang after visiting the region with 20+ foregin ambassadors

 

[xizhimen]

Kazakhstan president: China does not have concentration camps

 

[xizhimen]

Ex prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir's thoughts on Uyghurs in China

 

[xizhimen]

Western media and politicians make up lies about Xinjiang 24/7 non stop, but they don't even know where Xinjiang is.... How pathetic!

Trump state department spokesperson confused China and Japan when talking about the Olympics, suggesting Japan is persecuting Muslims in Xinjiang province in Japan. It shows how much US politicians know about countries they are consistently talking about.

 

[Jackdaws]

Sad to read. Hope the Muslims of Xingiang are treated with dignity by China soon.