The Sunday Story: Arresting Your Brothers and Sisters

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🗓️ 25 August 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

In the Xinjiang region of western China, the government has rounded up and detained at least hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups. Many haven't been heard from in years, and others are still desperately searching for their families. Western governments have called this crackdown a cultural genocide and a possible crime against humanity.

NPR Correspondent Emily Feng has been reporting on Uyghurs inside and outside of China for years. In this episode, she profiles two Uyghur men who have found themselves sometimes unwilling actors within the Chinese state's systems of control over Uyghurs. As they work to silence others, they sometimes find themselves silenced as well.

Additional Context:
Listen to Emily Feng's 2022 reporting, "The Black Gate: A Uyghur Family's Story" part one and part two.

For more on the history of the Uyghur people, listen to the episode "Five Fingers Crush The Land" from NPR's Throughline podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Aisharasco and this is a Sunday story. A couple of years ago we aired two
0:06.0	episodes by NPR's international correspondent Emily Fang. They were about an
0:11.3	ethnic Uyghur family struggling to survive a brutal crackdown by the Chinese state.
0:17.0	I've experienced unbelievably difficult days.
0:22.0	I do not know whether it's a test from God or what. This is
0:26.6	Abdullah Tif Kuchar. In her series Emily tells the story of how Chinese
0:32.3	authorities detained his wife and his young children.
0:35.8	Kuchar spent years trying to get his family back.
0:39.9	Since then, Emily has kept reporting on Uyghurs like the Kuchar family,
0:45.2	and she joins us today to talk about some of her latest work,
0:49.2	and the revealing view it gives us into how the Chinese government has been targeting Uyghurs.
0:55.2	Emily, thank you for being here today. Thank you so much for having me, Aisha.
1:00.7	Emily, you've spent years reporting on the repression and violence Uyghurs experience in China's
1:07.6	Xinjiang region.
1:09.6	The United Nations has warned that the arbitrary and discriminatory detentions ethnic minorities
1:17.0	face there may constitute crimes against humanity. Why is China doing this?
1:24.7	It's a great question, and it starts with the fact
1:27.3	that Uyghurs make up just under half of Xinjiang's population.
1:31.3	They speak their own language, which is completely different from Mandarin Chinese,
1:36.0	and if they're religious, they usually practice Islam.
1:39.0	But the Chinese authorities that control the Xinjiang region are mainly ethnic Han, that is China's ethnic majority, and they want to
1:46.7	reshape Xinjiang into a region that's more quote-unquote Chinese in their eyes.
	...

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