Secret Document Reveals China’s Paranoid Efforts to Keep East Turkistan News Secret

According to the document, at midnight, on March 9, 2018, the county government held a countywide mobilization meeting and began an investigation: about the news leaking, not about the death of the old man. Four separate working groups of 171 people launched a two-day operation against all families known to have foreign connections in the county. They examined 328 home phones and 171 office phones in Yekshenbebazar, where the news leaked, and analyzed the last three months’ call records. All phone numbers that had been used for more than three years were changed to avoid similar incidents and to prevent further leaks. All those responsible and suspects in the county were held accountable “according to the law.”

The leaked document was written on March 11, 2018—within three days of the RFA’s news airing.

Kashgar is a prefecture with a population of 4.5 million, and Yopurga is a county with a population of nearly 200,000. How can a single piece of news shock the governing body of a large prefecture the size of a small country so much? Is this the paranoia of a petty dictator, or the typical criminal psychology of a genocidal murderous state in the midst of its crimes?

An explanation and definition of the “leaking mistakes” in the document provides some clues to the answers: ‘Despite the prefecture’s repeated warnings and our careful delivery, the secrecy awareness of some cadres and residents is still not adequate. We violated the prefecture’s ‘two never’ policy [to] ‘never accept calls from abroad’ and ‘never speak, even if you unknowingly accept it.’”

The document goes on to state, “Our understanding and implementation of the orders of ‘keep the rules and regulations of vocational training centers confidential’ is insufficient…We failed to follow the ‘4 breaks’ order, especially the order to break their connections.”

The latter refers to the order to “Break their [of the Uyghurs] lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins,” which appeared  in other leaked documents from China and is seen by the international community as one of the strongest pieces of evidence of the Uyghur genocide.

Thus, through this document, Yopurga County apologizes to the governor’s office for not breaking strongly enough the “connections” of the Uyghurs and expresses its determination to correct this “mistake.”

The document does not say how many people were punished for this “crime” of leaking state secrets.

A propaganda image of the happy inhabitants of Yopurga County. From Weibo.

A propaganda image of the happy inhabitants of Yopurga County. From Weibo.

The news referenced in the document is ordinary compared to other news broadcast by the Uyghur Service from RFA. It was not translated into English and was not yet known by the international public. If ordinary news shocked the prefecture this much, what happened when RFA reported breaking news in the past? What about when it was reported that 120,000 Uyghurs were detained in a camp in Kashgar, when the location of the five camps in Ghulja was discovered for the first time, and when 156 people died in camps in Kucha? Which officials and how many personnel acted in those days, and how many people were punished for their involvement?

Of course, the officials of the places where the breaking news were reported did not get any less nervous than in Yopurga County.

According to RFA’s original report, the elderly man died under collapsed walls during the government’s implementation of a new village restoration project. The death was also caused by the fact that his children had been taken to the “vocational” camp and he had been left alone at home. At the time, RFA reported this incident based on information provided by the local hospital, but county officials denied it happened.

www.rfa.com