{"id":894,"date":"2018-07-13T14:17:53","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T14:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=894"},"modified":"2018-07-13T14:17:53","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T14:17:53","slug":"spy-for-us-or-never-speak-to-your-family-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=894","title":{"rendered":"Spy For Us \u2014 Or Never Speak To Your Family Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

China is using its huge digital surveillance system, and the threat of sending family members to reeducation camps, to pressure minorities to spy on their fellow exiles.<\/h6>\n

Buzfeed<\/a><\/p>\n

ISTANBUL \u2014 Spying on behalf of the Chinese state went against everything O. believed in.<\/p>\n

Yet even as he sat thousands of miles away in a quiet town in Sweden, he knew the police in his home country held something over him that could compel him to do just that \u2014 the freedom of his teenage son.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat could I do?\u201d O. said. \u201cI told them, \u2018My son is in your hands. He is the only thing that matters to me. I will do whatever you ask.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

O. and his son belong to an ethnic group called the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group who make up close to half the population of Xinjiang, a sprawling region in China\u2019s west. There, China\u2019s government has built\u00a0one of the world\u2019s most sophisticated surveillance states<\/a>. Measures used there include techniques like DNA collection, iris scans, and cellphone surveillance, and they are disproportionately targeted at minority groups. Hundreds of thousands of Uighurs have been sent to internment camps that are shrouded in secrecy over the past two years. None have been formally charged with a crime.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re Uighur, escaping China doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve escaped the surveillance state.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News interviewed 10 people in the exiled Uighur community who were targeted by Chinese state security after they moved overseas. They come from all walks of life \u2014 from waitstaff and fruit sellers to businessmen and government officials. BuzzFeed News is not naming the majority of these people to avoid endangering their family members who still live in China, because the government regularly punishes Uighurs\u2019 families for real or perceived transgressions committed while abroad. Their accounts, as well as dozens of WeChat and WhatsApp messages and voice recordings that they provided to BuzzFeed News, shed light on the methods and processes the rank and file of China\u2019s security apparatus use in surveilling Uighur exiles and fomenting deep-seated mistrust within their communities.<\/p>\n

That China spies on and pressures its exiles \u2014 particularly ethnic minorities and those involved in activities deemed political \u2014 is not new. China has used such tactics since at least the 1990s to put pressure on those it believes are seeking to undermine the state. But Uighur exiles, Western academics, and advocacy groups say this pressure campaign has gotten far more aggressive over the past two years and has been bolstered by digital surveillance tactics.<\/p>\n

China has ramped up repression of Uighurs because of fears of separatism and extremism in Xinjiang, and Uighur militants were responsible for a series of knife and bomb attacks in public places in 2014 and have fought alongside extremists in Iraq and Syria. But rights groups say the government\u2019s crackdown amounts to the collective punishment of millions of people over the actions of a handful.<\/p>\n

Every person interviewed for this article said state security operatives told them their families could be sent to, or would remain in, internment camps for \u201creeducation\u201d if they did not comply with their demands. It was a campaign, they said, that aimed not only to gather details about Uighurs\u2019 activities abroad, but also to sow discord within exile communities in the West and intimidate people in hopes of preventing them from speaking out against the Chinese state.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s now got the capacity and willingness to reach out across sovereign borders to influence the behavior of others,\u201d said James Leibold, an associate professor at La Trobe University in Australia. \u201cWith Chinese citizens of Chinese heritage, they may want to win them over, but with Uighurs they want to squash them. Their willingness to do this is not only in a covert way, but now increasingly in an overt way.\u201d<\/p>\n

O.\u2019s story, which is corroborated by WeChat messages and voice recordings of his conversations with his mysterious handler, is a common one. (BuzzFeed News also spoke to a close friend O. had confided in as the events were taking place, though O.’s handler could not be reached to independently verify his identity.) O. and his son left Xinjiang in 2014, when it was much easier for Uighurs to leave the country. They moved to Turkey, where O. believed his son could get a better high school education and perhaps win a scholarship to a good university.<\/p>\n

Lots of teenagers would resent their parents for uprooting them, but O.\u2019s son, then 15, loved Istanbul. He dove into books on Turkish culture and discovered he had an instinctive knack for languages, from Japanese to English. In his spare time, he loved to sketch, filling notebooks with drawings of cartoon wolves and superheroes.<\/p>\n

The two moved into a neighborhood in Istanbul where many Uighur immigrants lived, and O. found a job waiting tables at a restaurant, trying to save up money. In January 2016, O.’s son said he wanted to take a trip back to Xinjiang to visit his mother and grandmother. O. didn’t see any problem with it and gave his son permission to travel.<\/p>\n

But immediately after O.\u2019s son landed in Xinjiang, he disappeared. O. panicked and called relatives back home. Eventually he discovered his son had been detained by police.<\/p>\n

O.\u2019s son was released two months later, but he never made it back to Turkey. His passport was seized by authorities who suspected him of traveling to Syria to join extremist groups. (O. says he did no such thing.) O. left Turkey during this time too; he went to Sweden to seek asylum, believing he could now never return to China.<\/p>\n

Uighurs are regularly sent to reeducation camps when they are found to have had contact with family or friends who are outside China. Because of electronic surveillance and the fact that police physically check Uighurs\u2019 text messages and calls at checkpoints all over Xinjiang, it is nearly impossible to hide these interactions. For this reason, O.\u2019s family told him to stop trying to contact his son.<\/p>\n

So O. settled for obsessively scrolling through and refreshing his son\u2019s WeChat Moments \u2014 a component of the chat app that\u2019s similar to Facebook News Feed, full of candid pictures and life updates. The cheerful superhero drawings his son used to post had vanished. In their place were dark sketches of hideous monsters and ghouls that terrified O. He worried about the toll detention might have taken on his son\u2019s mind. Then this March, O.\u2019s son disappeared again, this time to a reeducation camp.<\/p>\n

Three days later, O. started getting WeChat messages from a state security operative, who said he was from O.\u2019s hometown and had registered a Xinjiang-based account. He told O. his real name, and O. believed he was who he said he was because of the detailed information he had on O.\u2019s family, and because of the fact that he could freely contact O. even though he was abroad.<\/p>\n

The state security operative, who is a Uighur himself, told O. he had to provide information about the Uighur community in Turkey, including phone numbers, names, and information about their activities. O. asked him whether his son was safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the kids who have been abroad must attend a patriotic education course,\u201d the operative told O., according to a recording of the conversation, which took place this April.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t get it\u2026 Is he still locked up?\u201d O. asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, it\u2019s a kind of school,\u201d the operative responded. \u201cA political education school. Education is important for kids, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The operative told O. that he would be happy to keep sending him news of his family \u2014 he might even send him a photo or two. O. needed him for this, he said. \u201cWhen everything is done, if everything is going as well as we expect, then I can try to apply for a permit for you to call each other. Maybe once a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to hear that,\u201d O. said.<\/p>\n

Reeducation camps of the kind<\/b>\u00a0O.\u2019s son was sent to have been opening by the dozen all over Xinjiang, but although those inside are taught Chinese language and Communist Party propaganda, they are more like secret internment camps than places of learning. Surrounded by high walls and loops of barbed wire, the camps sometimes house hundreds of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.<\/p>\n

Those inside\u00a0have reported<\/a>\u00a0dire conditions, including food deprivation, extended solitary confinement, and other serious abuses. Because reeducation in China is not considered criminal punishment, there is rarely any documentation given to families. People often disappear, sometimes in the middle of the night, and their families later discover they have been taken to the camps.<\/p>\n

Threatening the family members of exiles with punishment in China has been a longstanding tactic of the country’s security authorities, and it\u2019s reportedly been used against high-profile dissidents including\u00a0Anastasia Lin<\/a>, the Chinese-Canadian beauty queen and religious freedom advocate, and\u00a0ethnic Uighur reporters<\/a>\u00a0for Radio Free Asia.<\/p>\n

But as the reeducation camps sweep up hundreds of thousands of Uighurs based on criteria not divulged outside the government\u2019s own systems, it\u2019s become far easier for the state security apparatus to threaten exiles like O. over their families\u2019 freedom and safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [Chinese] police seem to increasingly have the ability to maintain complete information on all Uighurs living overseas,\u201d said Omer Kanat, director of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project. \u201cIt has mostly gotten worse through more use of imprisonment of them or their families as a threat, if Uighurs do not agree to spy on their fellows.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a request for comment, and the Foreign Ministry has not acknowledged that the camps exist. But glowing state media reports have bragged about reeducation camps as free facilities that enable Uighurs to self-improve and see the error of \u201cbackward\u201d religious practices like excessive prayer or wearing religious garb. But the fact that state security operatives use the prospect of these camps as a threat to Uighurs contradicts this notion, suggesting they know that it is, in fact, a punishment.<\/p>\n

Those interviewed for this story said that surveillance of exiles starts before they even leave, when they\u2019re applying for passports.<\/p>\n

Before 2015, the government had temporarily loosened restrictions on Uighurs getting passports, and many people subsequently left the country \u2014 migrating abroad, studying at foreign schools, or traveling. Then in late 2015, it seems the restrictions tightened again. Though rules appear to differ district-to-district, many Uighurs described having to get sign-offs from many government offices \u2014 sometimes paying thousands of yuan in bribes \u2014 to obtain passports.<\/p>\n

K., a former accountant from the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang\u2019s southwest who comes from a wealthy family, said he paid as much as $10,000 in bribes to obtain a passport in 2015 \u2014 a measure he took after police made it clear he was likely to be taken away to a reeducation camp. His two older brothers had already disappeared.<\/p>\n

Before state security authorities would agree to sign the paperwork to issue K. a passport, he said, he had to record a voice sample, allow police to take a 360-degree portrait of him and film him as he walked to record his gait. He also had to provide a single eyelash. The police never told him what these records were for.<\/p>\n

K. realized after leaving the country that the voice and video recordings were likely for facial and voice recognition, and the eyelash was for his DNA.<\/p>\n

Several people said one requirement for Uighurs going abroad was to provide contact information for every living family member as well as contacts abroad and a letter from their employer stating the person would not misbehave while overseas.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe power of the state security authorities is massive,\u201d K. said. \u201cIf they take someone away and they turn up dead, you cannot so much as ask what happened. There is no other government agency that has oversight over them. They are as powerful as an emperor.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

K. now lives in a city in the US. He said state security operatives began contacting him after he landed. But he had little information to provide them, so they left him alone.<\/p>\n

O. started cooperating<\/b>\u00a0with the state security operative, who later sent him proof of his identity. O. sent the officer the names of two Uighurs he knew in Turkey, knowing neither was involved in political activities, and that they both held pro-government attitudes anyway.<\/p>\n

As soon as he tapped \u201csend,\u201d he was wracked with guilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe this is my situation now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a spy for the Chinese government.\u201d<\/p>\n

O. knew exactly how brutal the system could be. In his early twenties, he worked as a police officer in his home city. Back then he was idealistic. Like everywhere in China, people in Xinjiang were getting richer, and he hoped the government would bring more prosperity to the region if police could enforce stability.<\/p>\n

But years on the police force made him feel disillusioned. There are many Uighur police officers in Xinjiang. But not being part of the majority Han Chinese ethnic group meant it was very difficult to be promoted past a certain level.<\/p>\n

You can be vice this or vice that, but never in a real position of power,\u201d he said. And being on the force, he started to see corrupt officers fabricating evidence or attacking Uighurs without cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I feel guilty,\u201d he said. \u201cI know this isn\u2019t right. I know that there is no such thing as the law there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kanat of the Uyghur Human Rights Project said exiles are under more scrutiny in urban centers where there are large populations of Uighur exiles, especially Washington, DC, where he lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Uighurs choose not to live in the DC area to try to avoid the notice of the authorities. Some Uighurs in the diaspora avoid even visiting the DC area,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Chinese police ask Uighurs if they have ever traveled to Washington, DC, and they receive more questioning if they answer yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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Tahir Imin, a Uighur academic who lives in the DC area, left behind his wife and their young daughter when he moved to Israel for graduate school. Even though he said more than a dozen of his family members have been sent to reeducation camps, including his brother and sister, he insisted that his real name be published in this article because he believes it will bring more attention to what\u2019s happening in Xinjiang.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

More than anything else in the world, Tahir loves his daughter, now 7 years old. In the photos he keeps on his cellphone of them together, her black hair is cut in a pixie style. In one picture, she\u2019s carrying a pink umbrella, a smile creeping across her heart-shaped face as Tahir hoists her onto his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Tahir was first contacted by Chinese state security officers last year, while he was in graduate school in Israel. At first, he was trying to keep a low profile there, but campus police inadvertently exposed him when they contacted the Chinese Embassy on his behalf after his house was robbed. A state security officer got in touch, urging him to cooperate with their demands. \u201cYou should think about your family,\u201d the operative said.<\/p>\n

Tahir believed he\u2019d be sent to a reeducation camp immediately if he returned home. So he applied for a visa to the US and fled there last year, hoping he would be better protected. Once he got to DC, though, the same operative continued to harass him, telling him he could not escape no matter where he lived, and that the Chinese government had informers everywhere.<\/p>\n

Tahir kept trying to call his family, but his wife told him he was causing them trouble. She asked him for a divorce, he says, in hopes that Chinese police would stop asking her about him. Then in February this year, out of nowhere, his daughter called him.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me, \u2018Father, you\u2019ve brought a lot of troubles to my mother and me, and you are a bad person. The police are the good people and they are helping us. You shouldn\u2019t talk to us,\u2019\u201d he said. There was no question in his mind that she had been asked to say the words.<\/p>\n

After that, his family deleted his contact on WeChat, and he hasn\u2019t heard from them since April. He has heard through the grapevine that much of his extended family has been sent to reeducation camps \u2014 but he believes his ex-wife and daughter are still free.<\/p>\n

Amid all this, a state security operative continued to ask him to cooperate with him. Finally, in June, he lost his temper.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore last week, I was also very afraid of them,\u201d Tahir told BuzzFeed News a week after that conversation. But something inside him had snapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Why would I cooperate with you? I know how brutal the Chinese police are. I don\u2019t want to hear from you ever again,\u2019\u201d he recounted.<\/p>\n

\n
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The operative, who is himself a Uighur, reminded him that his daughter was in their hands in a voice message that Tahir shared with BuzzFeed News.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYour daughter won\u2019t turn out to be a traitor like you when she grows up,\u201d the operative said. \u201cYour daughter will study hard and become useful to her homeland, to the nation, and to the Communist Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

State security operatives<\/b>\u00a0approaching Uighurs abroad for information on their communities has become so common that it has sowed a deep mistrust in these overseas communities and a pervasive feeling of being watched, those interviewed for this article said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a high-level sense of fear and paranoia among the exile communities,\u201d said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of distrust among each other \u2026 It\u2019s much more than the Han community abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of trust has impeded efforts toward activism abroad, even as many Uighur groups are seeking to pressure Western governments to push back on China\u2019s use of mass surveillance and reeducation camps through large political demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe catalyst for the mistrust is China’s deploying a wide network of spies amongst the Uighur community,\u201d said one exile in Sydney. \u201cThis mistrust plays out as a hurdle to cooperation between different individuals and groups in political activism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uighurs often don’t show up at protests because they’re afraid of being photographed or informed on, he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that the sense of being watched, even when abroad, has had a chilling effect on Uighur communities everywhere from Sydney to Washington. S., a Uighur businessman who lives in Istanbul, received an unsettling photo from a Chinese state security operative. It showed S. attending a funeral for a prominent person in the Uighur community in Turkey. S. couldn\u2019t figure out if the operative had gotten the photo from someone else in Istanbul or through electronic surveillance. But since then, he said, he has avoided being seen in public at gatherings where there are many other Uighurs present.<\/p>\n

The majority of Uighurs in exile cannot communicate with their families back home for fear of endangering them. In this regard, S. is lucky. In a community where people speak as if all their digital communications are monitored, he found a low-tech workaround by way of his sister\u2019s business partner, a Turkish man who lives in Xinjiang but sometimes travels home to Istanbul.<\/p>\n

During these visits, the Turkish man would sometimes stop by S.\u2019s apartment in a working-class neighborhood of the city. He would show S. messages and pictures from S.\u2019s sister, and bring news of who in the family was still free and who had been taken to the internment camps. The man will not give S. his contact information because he fears his cellphone is being surveilled, and they\u2019ve never communicated using an electronic device. All S. can do, as he thinks of his family, is wait and pray that the man will show up at his door again.<\/p>\n

On one of these house calls, the Turkish man told S. that Chinese police had shown his parents a photo of S. in Turkey wearing a long beard \u2014 a practice that\u2019s banned by the government for Uighurs in Xinjiang. Since then, S. started wearing his beard shorter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry about spies all the time, even today,\u201d S. said at a restaurant in Istanbul. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t heard from others that you are trustworthy, I would not be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue of Chinese spying on exile communities is well-known in the West. A\u00a0Swedish court<\/a>convicted a man of spying on the Uighur exile community in the country on behalf of the Chinese government in 2010, and a 2011 case in Munich charged three men with spying on the Uighur community in that city. A review of public documents related to asylum claims in Australia shows that the threat of Chinese espionage activities in exile communities has been repeatedly used as evidence for Uighur refugees to be granted asylum.<\/p>\n

But for Uighurs who receive these requests from Chinese state security, it seems authorities outside China are of little help.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou understand the position I\u2019m in,\u201d said O., who is still waiting to learn whether his request for asylum has been granted. \u201cI\u2019m doing something illegal in Sweden, but if I stop, they will take my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

O. said he repeatedly approached Swedish authorities, including the police and even the Swedish Security Service, the country\u2019s domestic security agency, with a written report of what had happened to him, which he also provided to BuzzFeed News. He has not yet heard anything back.<\/p>\n

Dag Enander, a spokesperson for the Swedish Security Service declined to comment on specific cases or answer questions about the organization\u2019s operations, but said, \u201cwe see unlawful intelligence activities targeting refugees as a very serious crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Swedish Security Service makes every effort to prevent and counter any unlawful intelligence activities carried out in Sweden against refugees,\u201d Enander added. \u201cSuch unlawful activities are often extensive, branched out in several countries, and take a considerable amount of time to investigate. The Swedish Security Service follow up and investigate any indications we receive that unlawful intelligence activities targeting refugees may be taking place in Sweden.\u201d<\/p>\n

After O. cooperated with the state security operative for months, his son was released from the reeducation camp. It had been so long since he had spoken to his son that he almost seemed like a stranger.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour son has grown a lot. Your wife said she needs to buy new clothes for him,\u201d the state security operative told O., according to a recording in mid-May. \u201cThey are at the train station by now.\u201d<\/p>\n

O. asked if he could phone his son, who he hadn\u2019t seen since he got on that plane leaving Istanbul in 2016.<\/p>\n

\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s not good to call him for the time being,\u201d the operative said. \u201cThere is a strict control on it, you know. It can get them in trouble. Let\u2019s wait a bit.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe can help each other,\u201d he added. \u201cI can help you here, and you can help me there, as we discussed last time \u2014 right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/meghara\/china-uighur-spies-surveillance?utm_term=.exqbgOl6MD#.eogMZGXD52<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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China is using its huge digital surveillance system, and the threat of sending family members to reeducation camps, to pressure minorities to spy on their fellow exiles. Buzfeed ISTANBUL \u2014 Spying on behalf of the Chinese state went against everything O. believed in. Yet even as he sat thousands of miles away in a quiet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinas-uyghur-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}