Leaked letter shows how China explains detaining Muslims to family members

Some Chinese students are heading home to find their family has disappeared, now leaked documents reveal what government tells them is going on.

Secret Chinese Government documents reveal how the regime deals with Muslims who ask questions after their families are taken away to “schools” in the country’s west.

The documents, reported by the New York Times, were leaked by “a member of the Chinese political establishment”.

They detail how international students returning to their homes in China’s far west would return home to find their families gone.

Anticipating how they would react to this news, the leaked documents reveal a bureaucratic guide for state officials on how to answer the most difficult questions, the most common of which is “Where is my family?”

“They’re in a training school set up by the government,” the guide tells them to say.

If the students ask question, officials were then supposed to tell students that their relatives were not criminals — but they could not leave these “schools”.

The guide also details a threat officials can tell the students — that their behaviour could either shorten or extend the detention of their relatives.

“I’m sure that you will support them, because this is for their own good,” officials were advised to say, “and also for your own good.”

The leaked documents have been revealed in the New York Times. Picture: New York Times

The document is just one of a trove of leaked Chinese government documents revealing details of its clampdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in the country’s western Xinjiang region under President Xi Jinping.

United Nations experts and activists say at least one million Uighurs and members of other largely Muslim minority groups have been detained in camps in Xinjiang in a crackdown that has drawn condemnation from the United States and other countries.

It said the papers show how Mr Xi gave a series of internal speeches to officials during and after a 2014 visit to Xinjiang following a stabbing attack by Uighur militants at a train station that killed 31 people.

The report said Mr Xi called for an “all-out ‘struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism’ using the ‘organs of dictatorship,’ and showing ‘absolutely no mercy’.” The documents show that the Chinese leadership’s fears were heightened by terrorist attacks in other countries and the US drawdown of troops from Afghanistan.

It is unclear how the documents totalling 403 pages were gathered and selected, the newspaper said.

Beijing denies any mistreatment of Uighurs or others in Xinjiang, saying it is providing vocational training to help stamp out Islamic extremism and separatism and teach new skills.

A screengrab of a video showing blindfolded and shackled Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang Province. Picture: YouTube

The documents show how officials were given talking points to explain to returning university students that their family members had been taken away for training, and how the program faced pushback from some local officials, the report said.

They also show that the internment camps expanded quickly after Chen Quanguo was appointed in August 2016 as the party boss of the region, the report said. Chen had taken a tough line to quell restiveness against Communist Party rule during his previous posting in Tibet.

Australia’s human rights partnership with China has been quietly suspended over Beijing’s mass detention of Uighurs.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says the Human Rights Technical Co- operation Program, worth $7.4 million over three years, has been suspended after more than two decades.

However, this morning, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has issued a statement of support for Australia’s economic partnership with China.

He says while China has outstripped the United States as Australia’s largest foreign investor, there are clear differences between the two nations that need to be carefully managed.

China's President Xi Jinping has copped criticism over the controversial camps. Pavel Golovkin/ AFP

“China is an important partner as well but we both acknowledge there are important differences including our different political systems,” he will tell a strategic forum in Sydney on Monday.

“We are best served by being clear and consistent in the policy positions we take in accordance with our values and national interest.

“We may disagree at times with China on human rights, foreign investment and other matters but by being clear and consistent our differences need not undermine this important relationship.”

Originally published as Leaked letter shows how China explains detaining Muslims to family members