A sizable fund has been set aside for informants following a deadly attack in Hotan Prefecture.<\/p>\n
2017-03-17<\/span><\/p>\n \u200b<\/span>Authorities in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region are offering hefty sums of cash to would-be tipsters on terrorist activities, according to an official announcement issued in the aftermath of a deadly attack carried out by a group of Muslim ethnic Uyghurs last month.<\/span> A sizable fund has been set aside for informants following a deadly attack in Hotan Prefecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3520","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\/3520","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=3520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3520"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In a Feb. 23 statement recently obtained by RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service, the Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture government said 100 million yuan (U.S. $14.5 million) had been set aside to reward residents reporting \u201csuspicious\u201d acts following the knife attack a week earlier in Guma (Pishan) county.<\/span>
\u201cOur region will create an anti-terror defense front composing every ten families as a unit, and an anti-terror reward fund in order to encourage the masses to actively provide tips related to terrorism,\u201d the announcement reads.<\/span>
\u201cTip providers will receive anywhere from 150 yuan (U.S. $22) to 500,000 yuan (U.S. $72,426), depending upon the importance and usefulness of the tip on suspicious terrorist activity or suspicious individuals.\u201d<\/span>
The announcement said authorities would guarantee the anonymity of informants and secretly transfer funds to their bank accounts, if requested.<\/span>
Anyone exposing high-ranking members of the community involved in suspicious activity will be handsomely rewarded for their information.<\/span>
\u201cTip providers who report on \u2018double-faced\u2019 cadres, party members or \u2018double-faced\u2019 religious clergy will receive 200,000-500,000 yuan (U.S. $28,970-72,426),\u201d the announcement said.<\/span>
The focus on rooting out top-level \u201cterrorists\u201d echoed points in a speech on maintaining stability by Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo earlier this year, calling for the \u201csevere punishment\u201d of \u201cdouble-faced\u201d cadres and religious clergy in the region.<\/span>
A second announcement, issued Feb. 28 by the Chira (Cele) county government, offered similar rewards to local residents for reporting on their neighbors.<\/span>
\u201cTip providers who report on the suspicious activities of individuals returning from overseas travel will receive 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,449),\u201d the Chira announcement said.<\/span>
\u201cTip providers who report on individuals who refuse to greet, shake hands, socialize, let their children marry the children of, or attend the funerals of government cadres and patriotic religious clergy will receive 3,000 yuan (U.S. $435).\u201d<\/span>
Those who report individuals for having \u201cstitched the \u2018star and crescent moon\u2019 insignia on their clothing or personal items\u201d or the words \u201cEast Turkestan\u201d\u2014referring to the name of a short-lived Uyghur republic\u2014on their mobile phone case, purse or other jewelry, are also eligible to receive 3,000 yuan.<\/span>
Offering rewards to informants is the latest move in a bid by authorities to increase security in Hotan, where a Feb. 15 attack by three Uyghurs in a residential area of Guma county left five passersby dead and another five injured, with the attackers themselves shot dead by police, according to state media.<\/span>
The attack appears to have been motivated by anger at threats by local officials to punish the attackers for praying with their family, an activity outlawed by authorities in an effort to restrict Muslim religious practice in Xinjiang, sources told RFA.<\/span>
On Feb. 16, authorities in nearby Keriye (Yutian) county announced a move to add 254 additional auxiliary members to its police force, with 204 jobs reserved for ethnic Uyghurs and 50 spaces held for Han Chinese, local media reports said last week.<\/span>
Prefecture-wide policy<\/b>
RFA was able to confirm that rewards were being offered to informants in at least two other counties in Hotan\u2014Keriye and Lop (Luopu) counties\u2014after speaking with police officers in local townships.<\/span>
A police officer who answered the phone in Lop county\u2019s Sampula township told RFA that \u201cphone calls from tip providers go straight to our chiefs,\u201d but said that as part of the station\u2019s auxiliary patrol, \u201cI don\u2019t have specific information about this issue.\u201d<\/span>
An officer in Keriya county\u2019s Qarqiy township said he was unable to provide details about rewards to informants without the permission of his chief and the local political commissioner because the information was \u201cconfidential.\u201d<\/span>
But officers from two other townships in Keriya\u2014Siyek and Kokyar townships\u2014confirmed that several tipsters had made contact with local authorities in the weeks since the Hotan government issued its announcement.<\/span>
\u201cTip providers or situation reporters directly meet with township party secretary or township security personnel,\u201d said an officer from the Siyek station.<\/span>
\u201cI am usually on a 48-hour watch duty at the police tower. Almost nobody comes to provide tips or report things there\u2014at least, I haven\u2019t seen anyone doing it.\u201d<\/span>
A police officer in Kokyar township told RFA that \u201ctip providers from the township and villages [are] coming in to report suspicious things or individuals,\u201d adding that some had called the police station directly.<\/span>
\u201cThere were tip providers from the Hotan region who received a monetary reward,\u201d said the officer, who did not provide his name.<\/span>
\u201cIn our area, the situation is quite normal because we adopted tough measures earlier and cracked down hard on suspicious individuals or activities. We do get some tips from time to time but really not on a large scale.\u201d<\/span>
The officer said that it was normal for neighbors to \u201cspy on one another\u201d and \u201cwatch one another\u2019s activities in the township and area villages.<\/span>
\u201cEvery ten families are organized as a group to watch one another,\u201d he said.<\/span>
\u201cSuspicious things are usually reported to the township cadres, but not many people come to our police tower to provide tips.\u201d<\/span>
Suspicion and fear<\/b>
Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, president of the Uyghur American Association (UAA) exile group, compared Hotan\u2019s reward system to tactics used in Nazi Germany, under Stalin in the Soviet Union and in Mao Zedong\u2019s China during the Cultural Revolution, and said it was likely to backfire in Xinjiang.<\/span>
\u201cFor the Chinese government\u2014especially in the Hotan region\u2014to throw some crumbs to the Uyghur people and encourage them to spy on their own is nothing short of pushing those living under its authoritarian rule into a moral crisis that will result in tragedies of conscience,\u201d Kokbore said.<\/span>
\u201cWhile such heavy-handed Chinese policy may produce some limited results, it will sow deep suspicion among the people. It is clear\u2014such a society without trust, and living under suspicion and fear, will eventually shake the foundations of China\u2019s communist rule.\u201d<\/span>
China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.<\/span>
While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.<\/span>
Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"