Uyghur Muslim Women ‘Forced to Share Bed’ with Chinese Officials

Married Uyghur Muslim women are reportedly ‘forced to regularly share the same bed’ with Chinese Han male officials sent by the government to monitor them when their husbands are being indoctrinated in internment camps, The Independent reported.

Since 2017, Uyghur Muslim families have been required to invite officials into their homes and provide them with information about their lives and political views.

The “Pair Up and Become Family” program is one of several repressive policies targeting Uyghurs in the region.

Recently, a Communist Party cadre in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yengisar (Yingjisha) county said that 70 to 80 families in the township he oversees have Chinese, mostly male, “relatives” that stay for up to six days at each household.

“The ‘relatives’ come to visit us here every two months … they stay with their paired relatives day and night,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They help [the families] with their ideology, bringing new ideas and talk to them about life, during which time they develop feelings for one another.”

Over the course of the week, those officials work and eat together with the Uyghur hosts. Officials even “sleep in the same bed” as family members.

“Normally one or two people sleep in one bed, and if the weather is cold, three people sleep together,” he said.

Uyghur children play while their relatives rest outside their house, decorated with Chinese lanterns and barbed wire, at a complex in Hotan, Sept. 20, 2018.

Forced Assimilation

According to New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), in December 2017, authorities greatly expanded the October 2016 Pair Up and Become Family drive to mobilize more than a million cadres to spend a week living in homes, primarily in rural areas.

The “homestay” program was extended in early 2018 and cadres now spend at least five days every two months in the families’ homes, HRW said, adding that “there is no evidence to suggest that families can refuse such visits.”

HRW has called the homestays an example of “deeply invasive forced assimilation practices” and said they “not only violate basic rights but are also likely to foster and deepen resentment in the region.”

Dolkun Isa, the president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress exile group, has said the “Pair Up and Become Family” campaign represents the “total annihilation of the safety, security and well-being of family members,” and that the program has “turned Uyghurs’ homes into prisons from which there is no escape.”

China has also kept thousands of Uighur children away from their Muslim parents before indoctrinating them in camps posing as schools and orphanages, studies show (file photo)

Strict Religious Regulations

A set of new religious regulations were announced in February 2018, which included a declaration requiring the national flag to be raised by local mosques along with the removal of non-Chinese Islamic symbols.

Many mosque decorations are of Middle Eastern origin, including elaborate geometric designs, stylized Arabic script and the ubiquitous crescent moon and star.

Mosques were further required to adopt Chinese-architectural styles, with all domes to be demolished by the end of March.

Minors, defined as being under the age of 18, were banned from entering mosques to study, including during vacations.

Scholars were told they had to register their residential addresses as well as providing personal details and documentation.

A prohibition was also imposed on the use of loudspeakers for calls to prayer and Qur’anic recitations.

Authorities in China have reportedly rounded up an estimated one million mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking minorities into internment camps in what they call an ‘anti-terror’ campaign

Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims

In its 117-page report, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims,” Human Rights Watch presented new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, and the increasingly pervasive controls on daily life.

Chinese authorities impose restrictions on Uyghur Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, especially during Ramadan.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of a heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

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