PRC's genocide of Uyghur land, life, and livelihoods since 2017

From: The New York Review of Books <newsletters @ nybooks dotcom>
Date: 9 February 2025     Subject: The Fight for Uyghur Rights

excerpt from New York Times Review of Books interview with Uyghur poets linguist, falsely imprisoned 15 months in China's Gulags:

It's clear from your piece that the Uyghur language is harshly repressed in schools. In what other ways does the state prevent the transmission of your language and culture?

The Uyghur language is banned in schools, hospitals, and government buildings. Uyghur mosques are being shut down, Uyghur cultural activities are being banned, and there are no places to speak and practice our culture. 

Uyghur culture cannot be transmitted to younger generations at home because of the fifteen-year boarding education system: three years of kindergarten, six years of primary school, and six years of high school. Once intended primarily for children with detained parents, there has recently been a significant expansion of this system, and now many Uyghur kids from ages three to ten have to stay at boarding school for five or six days each week—it varies by location. Kids from ages ten to eighteen have to stay at school for ten months out of the year. If the kids are from an "untrustworthy family"—meaning one in which family members have been arrested—they have to stay at school year-round, until their graduation. 

Even when they are at home, Uyghurs are surveilled. Cameras have been installed outside the doors of many people's homes, and government minders often spend extended periods living with the families they're watching. Uyghurs are made to install an app that tracks their communications, and even their children report on them. When children go back to boarding school after the weekend, they're asked to say whether their family is practicing Islam or speaking Uyghur at home. This can downgrade their status to "untrustworthy." Only on the street can you speak the language—but then again, on every street there are surveillance systems that can record your voice, take your picture, and record your movements.