Journalists who make it in are tracked and intimidated to leave, and China’s state-of-the-art surveillance system has made it nearly impossible to travel to the locked down province without your every movement recorded and monitored.
However, Al Bawaba has acquired a set of photographs that document China’s so-called ‘anti-halal’ campaign and wider efforts to coerce Uyghur, Kazakh and Hui Muslims from practicing their religion.
The photos, which were taken and provided by Dr. Joanne Smith Finley, a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Newcastle University, show mosques surrounded by razor wire and courtyards populated only by a Chinese flag in addition to restaurants with ‘halal’ signs ripped off their facades.
China has doubled down on its program to surveil Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims, as well as Christians, sending up to three million to detention and ‘re-education’ centers that are more accurately described as concentration camps. Amid growing international scrutiny into its crackdown, the Chinese Community Party (CCP) has retroactively legalized its surveillance and detention programs, effectively clearing the way for them to expand rapidly in size and scope.
