Thread by @WilliamYang120

By @evadou and @catecadell: How the "vocational training centers" in #Xinjiang have gradually been turned into COVID19 quarantine centers yet the fear in the region remains. #China washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/…

"A nine-day reporting trip by The Washington Post through the region in late July and early August revealed concerted efforts by Chinese officials to put the crackdown behind them.

But even as the most visible security measures have been loosened, Xinjiang residents continue to live under heavier official pressure than in other parts of China."

"Now the final stage has begun: An official forgetting. As with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, Tiananmen in 1989 and other violent campaigns since, the party is moving to erase traces of its actions in Xinjiang from history."

"For Uyghur families ruptured by the crackdown, there is no hope for forgetting, or for a return to normalcy."

"But even in tourist areas, there were glimpses of elevated pressures on Uyghurs. Cooking knives are still chained to the counters at restaurants. Signs in the backs of taxis remind passengers their conversations are being recorded."

"Outside several mosques, police officers rushed over to demand a Post reporter delete photos, saying it was forbidden to publish images of the religious structures. Such a rule does not exist elsewhere in China."

"A Washington Post reporter checked about a dozen sites around Kashgar and Hotan previously identified as reeducation sites in the Xinjiang Data Project, a database compiled by @ASPI_org."

"Most of them appeared to be empty or converted, with several sites labeled as coronavirus quarantine facilities, teacher’s schools and vocational schools."

"At some of the sites, local residents or guards confirmed they were former “vocational education and training centers,” Beijing’s official term for the reeducation camps, while at others, guards said the buildings had never served a different purpose than their current one."

“As for ‘reeducation’ — if it is being defined narrowly as the extrajudicial detention of Uyghurs and Kazakhs — it seems to have come to a halt,” said @GroseTimothy.

“Certainly, political ideology classes are still being carried out in prisons, factories, local government buildings and homes, so ‘reeducation’ is ongoing.”

@RayhanAsat said officials recently visited her parents in Xinjiang and asked them to remind her brother to “study well” in prison. She said this seemed to indicate reeducation continues for prisoners.

"In an industrial park outside the city of Hotan, the sprawling yellow buildings of a former reeducation center stand empty. Down the street, a prison is operating, on a block sealed off with a tall metal gate.

“It’s a prison back there. You shouldn’t linger around here.”

"The continued operation of prisons in industrial parks across Xinjiang is one reason human-rights activists say forced labor may still be present in the region, which Chinese authorities deny.

Xinjiang also still operates state-organized poverty alleviation labor transfer programs, which the U.N. report flagged as a forced labor risk due to Uyghurs having reported threats if they don’t participate."

"Several employees in a textile park in Yarkant County told The Post they were working voluntarily and were satisfied with the pay, while others said they were completing internships as a requirement to graduate from a vocational school,...

... a common source of factory labor across China. Because of the risk of retaliation for Xinjiang residents who speak to international media, a Post reporter did not record the names of those who spoke in brief chats."

“Lack of transparency is a major challenge and one reason it took so long for international concern to focus on the region,” said Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow for Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

“At the same time, the situation has continued to evolve, in part as a result of this growing attention both in China and abroad.”