Authorities warn that attempts to cover up ‘anti-state activities’ will be harshly punished.<\/p>\n
2017-02-14<\/p>\n
In scenes reminiscent of China\u2019s Cultural Revolution, ethnic Uyghurs in the country\u2019s Xinjiang region are being called to meetings to confess their \u201ccrimes,\u201d with punishment threatened for those whose misdeeds come to light in other ways, RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service has learned.<\/p>\n
The meetings, conducted as part of a campaign called \u201cRevealing Errors,\u201d are being held in Xinjiang\u2019s Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture to uncover behavior considered politically destabilizing in the restive, mostly-Muslim region in China\u2019s far northwest, sources say.<\/p>\n
\u201cVillage residents from 18-65 years of age are being brought to their village office every day to admit to their mistakes or to point out mistakes they have seen others make,\u201d according to a letter from an Aksu resident received by RFA.<\/p>\n
Residents are called to a podium one by one to confess these errors after they have listed them on a 39-question form, the letter says, adding, \u201cThey are also told they will face legal consequences if they attempt to cover up their own or anyone else\u2019s anti-state activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity, a police officer in Aksu\u2019s Shayar county said, \u201cThe central question asked at these meetings is, \u2018Have you ever watched, saved, or forwarded harmful religious or separatist postings or [media] clips, or have you ever seen anyone else do this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Uyghurs are also asked if they have ever made politically \u201charmful\u201d statements in public or in smaller gatherings of family, neighbors, or friends, or if they have heard anyone else do so, the officer said.<\/p>\n
‘A big mistake’<\/strong><\/p>\n At a public sentencing held at Bostan village in Asku\u2019s Kuchar county on Jan. 31, five of seven defendants were released on parole because of their \u201cgood attitude\u201d in cooperating with authorities, Kurban Memet, a Uyghur police officer from Kuchar\u2019s Uzun township, told RFA.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the other two were arrested and handcuffed in front of everyone because they had not fully revealed their mistakes,\u201d Memet said. <\/p>\n \u201cThey have now been transferred to judicial authorities,\u201d Memet said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in shock when I heard the verdict against the two,\u201d said Niyaz Ghopur, a local farmer. \u201cThey really made a big mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey had watched video clips posted by an overseas separatist group, and they were supposed to reveal this at the meeting, even if they had opened the separatists\u2019 website by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think they could get as much as seven years for this crime,\u201d Ghopur said.<\/p>\n Rush to confess<\/strong><\/p>\n Frightened by the sentencing at Bostan, which was attended by over 1,000 people from Uzun township\u2019s villages, residents were rushing to confess their crimes before a Feb. 10 deadline, Kurban Memet told RFA last week.<\/p>\n \u201cSome farmers don\u2019t know which videos or film clips could be considered harmful,\u201d Memet said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just tell them not to be late in revealing their problems, that they will be in much greater danger if they try to hide things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Reported and translated by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Authorities warn that attempts to cover up ‘anti-state activities’ will be harshly punished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3399","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\/3399","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=3399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3399"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}