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World News See other World News Articles Title: An Internment Camp for 10 Million Uyghurs On September 9, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing the persecution of the Muslim population in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The report describes widespread arrests of Uyghur people in the region by the Chinese authorities, who place those arrested in prisons and so-called reeducation camps. Millions of people in the region have fallen under the constant watch of a state-run video surveillance system, and their social status and even their overall path in life depend on points acquired in a “social credit” system. According to Human Rights Watch, repressions on this scale have been unheard of in China since the Cultural Revolution. According to The New York Times, U.S. President Donald Trump is considering introducing sanctions against China as a form of retaliation, but the situation in Xinjiang has generally gone almost entirely undiscussed, perhaps because tourists and journalists only rarely reach the area. Here, Meduza is publishing reporting by a Russian-speaking journalist and traveler who managed to enter Xinjiang during the summer and observe how the new technologies in use there facilitate total surveillance, segregation, and discrimination. The author of this piece has chosen to remain anonymous to protect his own safety and the safety of those he interviewed. Therefore, certain names and insignificant details in this story have been altered. The Border It was 15 years ago when I first arrived at Irkeshtam Pass, a border crossing that divides Kyrgyzstan from China. At the time, I was hitchhiking, and I was the only tourist in the entire checkpoint, a long halfpipe-shaped barrack with a ragged fence made of barbed wire. The barrack was divided in half by a boom gate and a desk occupied by a sleepy Kyrgyz soldier. The elevation there made it difficult to breathe. It was difficult to hold a conversation, too: wind howled over the border and dampened the sound of our words. It was a rather forbidding place next to a beat-up, two-lane road that led down to Xinjiang, a wide, mountainous region overgrown with thorns that also houses Taklamakan, one of the largest sand deserts in Asia. Directly across from the soldier’s desk, a new country began. Lines of trucks stood on either side of the gate dividing the barrack. Some carried consumer goods from China to Central Asia and onward to Russia, and others carried machining stations left over from old Soviet factors from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to China. Everyone knew which side was developing faster, but the signs of progress were barely noticeable even on the Chinese side, aside from the slightly less ragged barbed wire and the fact that the soldiers sat in a new booth made of glass and tile. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: strepsiptera (#0)
The fact that we are living under emergency rule here in the U.S. is something not many are aware of at all. Things here can change in the blink of an eye. ;)
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
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