Authorities in at least two areas of Xinjiang have aggressively ramped up a requirement in recent months that Uyghurs report guests in their homes to police in as little as 10 minutes to two hours of their arrival, three Uyghur township government cadres told Radio Free Asia.
The requirement was first implemented in June 2015 and has been increasingly emphasized by the government of Ma Xingrui who took over as Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang in December 2021, they said.
The requirement is one of several draconian surveillance policies implemented by Chinese authorities to monitor Uyghurs’ movements amid ongoing human rights abuses in Xinjiang that the United States and some Western parliaments have said amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. China has denied the accusations.
Comments posted online by some Uyghur netizens attributed Chinese authorities’ concern about Uyghur gatherings to the government’s tyranny, while others say they believe the main reason is to conceal information about the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.
A resident of Yengisheher county in Kashgar prefecture was detained at the Yapchan village police station with his wife for forgetting to report a relative from Ghulja who arrived for a visit earlier this month, said a person with knowledge of the situation, giving a recent example of the stepped-up measures.
The pair were released the next day after a night of interrogation, and their guest ended the visit earlier than planned and returned home, he said.
The guest said, “It’s like this everywhere,” implying that similar practices are in effect in Ghulja where he lives, the person added.
A local police officer contacted by RFA acknowledged the couple's arrest and release.
Police in Guma county of neighboring Hotan prefecture said the system of reporting newly arrived guests to police was being more rigorously adhered to than it was in the past.
A police officer in the county’s Kokterak township said residents there must report out-of-town guests to authorities within two hours of their arrival and neighbors within one hour of their arrival.
An officer in the county’s Choda township said residents must report guests to the police within 10 minutes, and that if they failed to report them within 30 minutes, they would be held responsible, though he didn’t elaborate.
“If the guests stay for more than half an hour they need to be reported,” he said. “It’s the same for any number of guests. Starting from the beginning of this year, this policy has been strict.”
Adult and teenage visitors as young as 14 must be reported, he added.
He said he didn’t believe that any Uyghurs who failed to report visitors had been taken in for “re-education.”
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.