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China Tightens Up On Info After Leaks 12/14 09:49
The Xinjiang regional government in China's far west is deleting data,
destroying documents, tightening controls on information and has held
high-level meetings in response to leaks of classified papers on its mass
detention camps for Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities,
according to four people in contact with government employees there.
(AP) -- The Xinjiang regional government in China's far west is deleting
data, destroying documents, tightening controls on information and has held
high-level meetings in response to leaks of classified papers on its mass
detention camps for Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities,
according to four people in contact with government employees there.
Top officials deliberated how to respond to the leaks in meetings at the
Chinese Communist Party's regional headquarters in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital,
some of the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears
of retribution against themselves, family members and the government workers.
The meetings began days after The New York Times published last month a
cache of internal speeches on Xinjiang by top leaders including Chinese
President Xi Jinping. They continued after the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists worked with news organizations around the world
including The Associated Press to publish secret guidelines for operating
detention centers and instructions on how to use technology to target people.
The Chinese government has long struggled with its 11-million-strong Uighur
population, an ethnic Turkic minority native to Xinjiang, and in recent years
has detained 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities in the camps.
Xinjiang officials and the Chinese foreign ministry have not directly denied
the authenticity of the documents, though Urumqi Communist Party chief Xu
Hairong called reports on the leaks "malicious smears and distortions."
The Xinjiang government did not respond to a fax for comment on the arrests,
the tightened restrictions on information and other measures responding to the
leaks. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not have an immediate comment.
Xinjiang's government had already mandated stricter controls on information
in October, before the news reports, according to three of the people, all
Uighurs outside Xinjiang.
They include orders for community-level officials to burn paper forms
containing sensitive personal details on residents in their area such as their
detention status, and for various state offices to throw away computers,
tighten management of classified information, and ensure all information
related to the camps is now stored on databases disconnected from the internet
in special, restricted-access rooms to bar hackers, the Uighurs said.
"They became much more serious about the transfer of information," one said.
Publication of the classified documents prompted the central government in
Beijing to put more pressure on Xinjiang officials, several of the Uighurs
said.
Restrictions on information appear to be tightening further. Some university
teachers and district-level workers in Urumqi have been ordered to clean out
sensitive data on their computers, phones and cloud storage, and to delete
work-related social media groups, according to one Uighur with direct knowledge
of the situation.
In other cases, the state appears to be confiscating evidence of detentions.
Another Uighur who had been detained in Xinjiang years before said his ex-wife
called him two weeks ago and begged him to send his release papers to her,
saying eight officers had come to her home to search for the papers, then
threatened she'd be jailed for life if she couldn't produce the papers.
"It's an old matter, and they've know I've been abroad for a long time," he
said. "The fact that they suddenly want this now must mean the pressure on them
is very high."
Some government workers have been rounded up as the state investigates the
source of the leaks. In one case an entire family in civil service was
arrested. Abduweli Ayup, a Uighur linguist in exile, said his wife's relatives
in Xinjiang -- including her parents, siblings, and in-laws -- were detained
shortly after the leaks were published, although Ayup said they had no relation
to the leaks as far as he was aware. Some people in touch with relatives
outside China were also investigated and seized, Ayup said.
It is unknown how many have been detained since the leaks.
Earlier this week, a Uighur woman in the Netherlands told a Dutch daily, de
Volkskrant, that she was the source of the documents published by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The woman, Asiye
Abdulaheb, said that after she posted one page on social media in June, Chinese
state agents sent her death threats and tried to recruit her ex-husband to spy
on her.
The leaked documents lay out the Chinese government's deliberate strategy to
lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, and to rewire their
thoughts and the language they speak. They reveal that facilities Beijing calls
"vocational training schools" are forced ideological and behavioral
re-education centers run in secret.
The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control
using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass
surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of
people for interrogation or detention in just one week.
The leaks come at a delicate time in relations between Washington and
Beijing, amid ongoing negotiations to end a trade war and U.S. concerns about
the situation in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory where police
have clashed with pro-democracy protesters.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the
Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, aimed at pressuring China over the mass
detentions in Xinjiang. Beijing swiftly denounced the bill as foreign
meddling. State media reported that the Chinese government was considering
retaliatory measures including visa bans on U.S. officials.
(KR)
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