In early 2023, several years after the winding down of the campaign of mass internment that ran from 2017 to 2019, local authorities in the Uyghur heartland of China’s Xinjiang region received a chilling order. Similar to the mass internment drive that began in 2017, they were instructed to meet strict quotas for the detention of Uyghur residents, but this time for short-term detention. To hit these targets, grassroots officials combed through the preceding decade of residents’ lives, hunting for anyone who had allegedly violated government orders or failed to submit fully to state management.
Infractions as minor as missing a weekly flag-raising ceremony, declining unpaid communal labor or state-mandated labor transfers, or possessing fitness equipment such as dumbbells suddenly triggered immediate detention. Detainees were held for up to 15 days in intentionally austere conditions, designed to instill fear. The explicit goal was total submission through calculated intimidation.
QUEENSLAND— A nurse in Australia has been formally reprimanded after admitting he submitted forged documents to Qantas (QF) in an attempt to secure a refund for a non-refundable airline ticket. Th...