Chinese censors working overtime to silence dissent on zero-Covid lockdowns in Xinjiang and Tibet
The death of Queen Elizabeth II was a convenient, if unlikely, distraction that came to the aid of the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese censors have been working hard to scrub the internet of evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where cities in the northwestern region are in a second month of a zero-Covid lockdown. As we’ve reported extensively in this newsletter, China’s incessant pursuit of its zero-Covid policy has led to ever more draconian measures to curb the virus.
At the beginning of this year, we heard stories of people starving and sleeping on the streets in quarantined Shanghai. But the lockdown in Xinjiang is even more of a cause for concern. The region, which is home to the Uyghurs and other Turkic, mostly Muslim ethnic groups, has been subject to a years-long crackdown before Covid even came on the scene. As many as a million Uyghurs have been corralled into concentration camps for so-called “re-education,” and now the implementation of Covid restrictions sees millions more imprisoned in their homes.
There’s usually an almost complete blackout on communications coming out of Xinjiang.
“While everyone in China is afraid to criticize the government, this is particularly true for Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, because even the slightest perceived dissent could send one to a political camp or prison,” Yaqiu Wang, a Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, told me.