Student spies check for ‘separatism’ and ‘extremism,’ are rewarded with future advancement in careers.<\/p>\n
2015-08-27<\/span><\/p>\n Ethnic Uyghur students at a top university in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region are being closely checked for their political and religious views by student informers who report to \u201cpolitical guides\u201d embedded in the university staff, a former school administrator says.<\/p>\n \u201cStudent spies are hidden in every classroom, dormitory, and lecture hall,\u201d a former staff member in the president\u2019s office of Xinjiang Normal University told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service.<\/p>\n \u201cThey record students\u2019 debates, arguments, and discussions of sensitive subjects, and sometimes they raise certain topics themselves just to draw out students\u2019 comments and opinions,\u201d RFA\u2019s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n Though the school, which is located in the regional capital Urumqi, educates both ethnic Uyghurs and Han Chinese, informers are increasingly being drawn from the Uyghur student population because university authorities are more interested in the political views of this group, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEach year, dozens of Uyghur students become the subjects of student spies\u2019 secret reports, with some accused of religious extremism and others labeled as \u2018separatists\u2019 or \u2018ethnic nationalists,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Student informers submit their reports to \u201cpolitical guides\u201d who are assigned to each department of the school and operate under the supervision of the ruling Chinese Communist Party\u2019s university branch, the source said, adding that the \u201cguides\u201d also teach political courses at the school.<\/p>\n The student spies are later employed as \u201cguides\u201d themselves, or are sent to their home prefectures after graduating with special recommendations from the Party for promotion in any job they take, the source said.<\/p>\n Political loyalty important<\/b><\/p>\n Han Chinese and Uyghur students are meanwhile selected for study abroad, with financial support provided by China\u2019s Ministry of Education, based primarily on their \u201cpolitical qualifications,\u201d RFA\u2019s source said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe candidates who are selected first are Communist Party members, active in Party programs, or government loyalists.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, academic achievements are also considered, but \u2018political qualifications\u2019 are the most important criteria,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Xinjiang, which is home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamic insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.<\/p>\n But rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English for Richard Finney.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Student spies check for ‘separatism’ and ‘extremism,’ are rewarded with future advancement in careers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2028"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}