Xinjiang authorities target Uyghurs cadres in ‘dark forces’ crackdown

Authorities in a central Xinjiang city have detained more than 70 Uyghurs officials after purging them for being “two-faced” — part of a larger operation to investigate and jail those deemed disloyal to China and the Chinese Communist Party, police said.

Authorities in Korla, the second-largest city by population in Xinjiang, told Radio Free Asia they had so far investigated over 200 Uyghurs deemed problematic, as part of a nationwide “dark forces” crackdown on the mostly Muslim group that began on July 15, police said.

The term “two-faced” is used by authorities to describe Uyghur officials who do not willingly follow directives, exhibit signs of disloyalty or show sympathetic tendencies toward other Uyghurs in northwestern China's Xinjiang region where the ethnic group faces repression.

“Since the beginning of the crackdown on ‘dark forces,’ more than 200 suspects have been investigated, [and] 76 of them were determined to be two-faced,” said a police officer on duty at the People’s Government building in Korla.

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The crackdown is the latest of a series of ongoing measures to suppress what China deems “ethnic separatist forces,” “terrorist forces” and “religious extremism” in Xinjiang, home to more than 11 million Uyghurs. 

It is also in keeping with policies to fully meld Uyghurs into the Chinese nation and deepen ideological control over the region. 

Reexamination method

The crackdown was initiated by Xinjiang’s “Combating Dark and Evil Forces” working group, which held a meeting on July 14, according to a Xinjiang TV report. The group said authorities would “identify and punish those who do not fulfill their duties in key areas using the reexamination method.”

Xinjiang authorities first used the “reexamination method” in 2016 to purge Uyghur writers, artists and researchers by finding “problems” in their previous works that raised questions about their loyalty to China, and subsequently punished them.

Authorities in Korla have operated under a state of emergency since the end of 2023 and have maintained that status since the beginning of the crackdown on “dark forces,” said the officer on duty at the People’s Government building.

“In meetings we were told that the main targets were two-faced-people,” he said. “There have been a lot of two-faced people detained since we started the attack on ‘dark forces.’” 

While the “attack on dark and evil forces” in Chinese provinces mainly targets gangs and criminals, authorities in Xinjiang go after Uyghurs in political and government positions, especially top Uyghur cadres, state employees and Chinese Communist Party members, according to Chinese media reports.

During the “dark forces” crackdown in Hotan, a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang called Hetian in Chinese, authorities investigated and punished leading cadres deemed “two-faced” for purportedly protecting “national separatists” and “religious extremists.” 

Authorities in Xinjiang have targeted ordinary Uyghurs during previous “reexamination” operations, jailing them for “religious extremism” for practicing their Muslim faith or studying or teaching the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, to others, even if the activities occurred a decade or two earlier.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.