{"id":4213,"date":"2018-10-15T14:27:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T14:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/15\/leaders-who-unleashed-chinas-mass-detention-muslims\/"},"modified":"2018-10-15T14:27:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T14:27:06","slug":"leaders-who-unleashed-chinas-mass-detention-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/leaders-who-unleashed-chinas-mass-detention-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leaders Who Unleashed China\u2019s Mass Detention of Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BEIJING \u2014 Rukiya Maimaiti, a local propaganda official in China\u2019s far west, warned her colleagues to steel themselves for a wrenching task: detaining large numbers of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chinese government wanted to purge the Xinjiang region of \u201cextremist\u201d ideas, she told her co-workers<\/a>, and secular Uighurs like themselves had to support the campaign for the good of their people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFully understand that this task is in order to save your relatives and your families,\u201d wrote Ms. Maimaiti, a Communist Party functionary who works on the western edge of Xinjiang, in a message that was preserved online<\/a>. \u201cThis is a special kind of education for a special time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her warning is one piece of a trail of evidence, often found on obscure government websites, that unmasks the origin of China\u2019s most sweeping internment drive since the Mao era \u2014 and establishes how President Xi Jinping<\/a> and other senior leaders played a decisive role in its rapid expansion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n