Hiring Muslims in China to detain more Muslims

The Chinese government has detained as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in a network of indoctrination camps across Xinjiang, provoking international condemnation.

china, china detains muslims, china hires muslims, muslims in china, muslim population in china, muslim migrants in china, muslim migration, kazakh muslims, world news, indian express — Baimurat, a Kazakh Muslim, who says he helped deliver hundreds of fellow Muslims to an indoctrination camp in China’s Xinjiang region, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Jan. 13, 2019. China’s vast detention program for Muslims has required more and more police officers, and recruits are coming from the very ethnic groups that are being suppressed. (Emile Ducke/The New York Times)

Written by Austin Ramzy

The businesses he started had failed, and he had a wife and two children to support. So when authorities in China’s far western Xinjiang region offered him a job with the auxiliary police, Baimurat welcomed the good pay and benefits.

For months, he stood at roadside checkpoints, looking for people on the government’s blacklist, usually from Muslim ethnic minorities. As a Kazakh Muslim himself, he sometimes felt uncomfortable about his work, but he needed the money.

Then he was asked to help bring 600 handcuffed people to a new facility — and was stunned by what he saw. Officials called it a job training center, but it was basically a prison, with toilets and beds behind bars. One detainee was an acquaintance he barely recognized because he had lost so much weight.

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Reporter - China's harassment of Muslims

The UN accuses China of detaining a million Uighurs, Kazakhs and people from other Muslim minorities in the region of Xinjiang. Most have not been accused of anything let alone sentenced.

Baimurat, 39, suppressed his emotions.

“There are cameras everywhere,” he recalled, “and if they see you look unhappy, you will be in trouble.”

The Chinese government has detained as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in a network of indoctrination camps across Xinjiang, provoking international condemnation. In doing so, it has vastly expanded the security apparatus in the sprawling, strategically important region on China’s western frontier.