As China built up a vast network of internment camps for Muslims, it oversaw a parallel effort to corral Uighur children into boarding schools. The aim? To indoctrinate a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to the party and the nation. nytimes.com/2019/12/28/wor…
2/China says the children in these schools are thriving. They get free tuition, food & clothes. They are learning about science and Chinese – aka skills for the future. But growing evidence suggests that the govt’s motivations may not be so altruistic. (Photo taken in Hotan) 
3/The boarding schools are essentially incubators designed to weaken devotion to Islam. The govt’s own words are shockingly blunt: the schools are crucial to “break the impact of the religious atmosphere on children at home.” (Photo: Boarding elementary school outside of Hotan)
4/Some Uighurs say their children were placed in these schools without their consent. One man spotted his 4-y/o son in a video speaking in Chinese. “What I fear the most is that the Chinese govt is teaching him to hate his parents and Uighur culture."
5/The scale of the effort is mind-boggling. At the end of 2017, nearly *half a million* kids were already boarding in schools – and the push to build more was just starting. The govt wants 1-2 of these schools in every township in Xinjiang by the end of next year.
6/In Hotan, every school @giuliamarchi and I visited was heavily securitized: barbed wire, security guards, metal detectors, cameras in every corner, even facial recognition systems. Juxtaposed alongside the colorful images of sunshine and fuzzy animals, the sight was chilling.
7/ We can only imagine the atmosphere of fear inside these walls: One sign outside a kindergarten in Hotan urged ppl to report “two-faced” teachers who made “irresponsible remarks” or participated in unauthorized religious worship, among many other offenses.
8/For me, the most troubling moments in reporting came thru talking to Uighur parents & reading the blogs of teachers in the schools. One elementary school teacher described how suddenly, all signs of Uighur script were purged from the classroom – even on the broomhandles.
9/Later, the teacher's school was converted to a full-time boarding school. His students often begged to use his phone to call their parents. “Sometimes, when they hear the voice on the other end of the call, the children will start crying and they hide in the corner,” he wrote.
10/The shadow of the camps was present throughout. One first-grade girl, he wrote, seemed to always be crying. “When I asked around, I learned that it was because she missed her mother,” he wrote.
Her mother had been sent to the camps.
Her mother had been sent to the camps.
11/Another girl’s father had also been sent to a detention camp. In a heartwrenching letter to her father, the 8-year-old wrote: “Daddy, where are you? Daddy, why don’t you come back?...I’m sorry, Daddy. You must study hard too.”
12/And the most unexpectedly moving detail for me: At one point, a boy offers to the teacher a near-universal excuse for not doing his homework: a dog ate it.
Xinjiang may feel at times like a world away, but these kids are just like any kids you know.
Xinjiang may feel at times like a world away, but these kids are just like any kids you know.
13/As one mother told me: “My children are so young, they just need their mother and father.”
Link to our story, with photos by @giuliamarchi nytimes.com/2019/12/28/wor… (Photo credit: NYT)
Link to our story, with photos by @giuliamarchi nytimes.com/2019/12/28/wor… (Photo credit: NYT)
