{"id":4220,"date":"2018-10-21T07:21:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T07:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/21\/china-detains-man-terror-charges-after-setting-watch-2-hours-behind-beijing-time-human\/"},"modified":"2018-10-21T07:21:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T07:21:04","slug":"china-detains-man-terror-charges-after-setting-watch-2-hours-behind-beijing-time-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-detains-man-terror-charges-after-setting-watch-2-hours-behind-beijing-time-human\/","title":{"rendered":"China detains man on terror charges after setting watch 2 hours behind Beijing time, Human Rights Watch says"},"content":{"rendered":"

China<\/a> detained a man of the Uighur<\/a> ethnic minority because he set his watch to a different time from Beijing<\/a>, Human Rights Watch<\/a> has said in a new report.<\/span><\/p>\n

The unnamed man was arrested for being a terrorist suspect and sent to a detention <\/span>centre<\/span> in Xinjiang<\/a>, western China, the <\/span>organisation<\/span> reports, citing a former detainee identified by the pseudonym Nur. The date of the arrest and detention was not clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The activist group’s source, who was identified by the pseudonym Nur, said: “I know of a guy … who was taken away for having set his watch to Urumqi time \u2014 they say that’s what makes him suspicious for terrorism.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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China justifies its surveillance and crackdown in Xinjiang as preventing<\/span>terrorism,<\/span> and has repeatedly accused militant Uighurs of launching terrorist attacks across the country since at least the mid-1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Former detainees have described both physical and psychological torture in China’s political camps. Recent inmates also described being forced to sing patriotic hymns in Chinese, and deprived of food if they did not comply, The New York Times<\/em> reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

Urumqi time, or Xinjiang time, is an unofficial time zone set two hours behind Beijing’s.<\/span><\/p>\n

China has one official time zone for the entire country \u2014 China Standard Time (CST) \u2014 which follows Beijing hours. But because the country is so big, Beijing is actually two hours ahead of the natural daylight schedule in Xinjiang, which is in the west.<\/span><\/p>\n