Beijing authorities spy on Uighurs all the way to their homes, reads the headline on the front page of Le Monde, published Thursday afternoon. Prominently on the front page, the paper wrote that the Chinese authorities have taken a new leap forward in their systematic control of the Uighurs and in their efforts to keep them compliant. The Chinese authorities have sent cadres to stay in Uighur homes to monitor their every move.
According to testimonies gathered by correspondents of Le Monde, these spy-like men are not only eating and living in Uighur homes, but even sleeping in the bedrooms of some Uighur couples. Uyghur women lived in fear of being harassed or raped by those who moved into their homes.
According to an article by Harold Thibault and Brice Pedroletti, the Chinese government sends cadres to live in the homes of Muslim minorities for one week a month in order to keep an eye on them.
The article writes about the home of Zumret Dawut, a Uighur woman. The article states that cadres sent by the Chinese government spend one week a month at Zumret Dawut’s house, they eat at her house to make sure that Dawut can cook Chinese food, they also pretend to help wash the dishes, and they check every corner of the house for Qurans. When Daut turned around, they asked the children: Do their parents talk to them about God? Do they go to the mosque on Fridays? However, Daut had already taught her three children-two daughters and a boy-to answer negatively or to avoid answering all questions posed to them by these strangers.
At night, the article continues, these “cousins” remained in Daut’s house, where they slept on a mattress placed on the floor of the bedroom where Daut and her husband slept. In the morning, they use Daut and her husband’s bathroom and then enjoy the breakfast Daut prepares for them.
Daut, 38, who is currently fleeing with her family to Virginia, said, “It seems like a game to these people to spy on us.” Four people came to her house: three men and one woman, which means that her family was being watched one-on-one. Her husband does not count because he is a foreigner (Pakistani).
The article notes that for Uighurs in Xinjiang, sending cadres into Uighur homes complements the Chinese government’s system of repression and comprehensive surveillance of this minority group.
Previously, there were cameras on every street corner, snitches in mosques and schools, and technology for smartphones to capture their contents. On top of that, at least one million of the 11.5 million Uighurs have been gathered in camps. The remaining blind spot is the family home. Against this backdrop, there are these strange Han Chinese “cousins” who move into Uyghur homes to ensure that the family is not a force for resistance.
The World article goes on to say that the first wave of this policy began in 2016, when supposedly more than 100,000 cadres and civil servants went to homes in southern Xinjiang, the most hostile region to Hanification. 2017, the year of the 19th Communist Party Congress, was the year this pilot experience was reinforced, and in 2018 the practice will be widespread. In the past two years, more than one million Han cadres have done this work. The selected Han cadres had no choice but to refuse to do it: they were recruited for the task in the tradition of the “people’s war” movement.
The Le Monde article also suggests that, in addition to the poorest Uighur families or those whose families are sent for re-education, the homes of many Uighur officials are also occupied by Han cadres, because these Uighur officials can be duplicitous: they are suspected of appearing loyal to the CCP, but secretly they are not.
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