Thread by @WilliamYang120

A leaked document from #China, named the Shanghai list, includes entries of at least 10,000 #Uyghurs being designated as "suspected terrorists," according to @RadioFreeAsia. rfa.org/english/news/s…

"The list, which analysts believe was compiled in 2018 at the latest, contains entries for individuals from all walks of life in Uyghur society, including ordinary citizens, children as young as five and six years old, senior citizens in their 80s, and ...

... Uyghurs who have lived and traveled abroad, as well as Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) who have never been abroad before."

"More than 400 minors are identified on the list as “terrorist suspects,” 162 of whom are under the age of five. The document says that children as young as five have been “met and examined” by security personnel."

"The Shanghai List gives no evidence or explanation as to why the listed individuals are suspected of terrorism, although many of the adults appear to be individuals of social influence and ...

... successful in their various fields of work, or have been vocal about ongoing abuses in the XUAR in the diaspora."

"A Uyghur truck driver based in Virginia, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal because his family members remain in the XUAR capital Urumqi, told RFA that he had heard he was on the list, although he had not seen it for himself."

“Initially I was surprised, but … given that I’ve been separated from my wife and children, [the list] just seems like a rather small matter,” he said, adding that he is unsure why he may have been targeted.

"The leak of the Shanghai List comes as a campaign of extralegal mass incarceration enters its fourth year in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps since 2017."

"Analysts and observers told RFA the Shanghai List is testament to just how vague and widespread the concept of “terrorism” is in China, and how the government is abusing this concept as a pretext for repressing Uyghurs."

@AsiyeUyghur said it is “impossible” for there to be so many “terrorists” in the XUAR at this time given the reality of the on-the-ground situation over the past few years.

“When we look at the large number of Uyghurs who have been accused of crimes and detained, and when we look at the fact that they’re in no hurry to differentiate between old Uyghurs and ...

... young Uyghurs before putting them on a terrorist list, we can infer here that the detention of Uyghurs is very widespread,” she said.

“It’s simply not possible that there is the risk of there being any such people in the homeland right now, because the restrictions there, the restrictions they’ve put on Uyghurs for all kinds of things, are so great in number.”

@adrianzenz said the list sheds light on China’s treatment of Uyghurs, and noted that there is no evidence that any of these people have anything to do with terrorism.

“All kinds of Uyghurs have been turned into terrorism suspects, even if they have absolutely no connection at all, like they haven’t even been to China for years, or they're just business people, or …

...they are minors, including some children as young as five years old, people who have done absolutely nothing and that’s widely known,” he said.

“It shows sort of the arbitrary nature of Chinese designations, basically placing an entire people group under a blanket suspicion, without any distinction or differentiation.

And that, I think, is very concerning because it just shows that there is the persecution of the Uyghur ethnic group as a group.”

@robertsreport told RFA he sees the Shanghai List as evidence of China’s intent to eradicate prominent people among the Uyghurs, and perhaps the Uyghurs as a people. “Any signs of Uyghur dissent are to be suspected of terrorism or extremism or separatism,” he said.

“So even what we've seen in the last four years, even before you had people disappearing into mass internment centers, you had lots of people who were disappearing, and primarily from the intellectual class, including party officials.”

Roberts said the Shanghai List is part of Beijing’s narrative over the past four years that the Uyghurs as a people are a danger to the Chinese state.

“It gets into this idea of preventive policing that even people who have not done anything wrong, the Chinese government appears to view them as potentially a threat,” he said.

“[It’s the idea that] they may do something wrong, or they may do something that the Chinese government perceives as a threat to the state.”