Family members of ethnic Uyghur security personnel in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, who authorities had previously considered “off limits,” are among those now being detained as part of “stability” measures the officers have been tasked with enforcing. Reports claim that while authorities have generally avoided harassing the families of Uyghur security personnel and public servants during past crackdowns in Xinjiang, even Uyghurs who serve the state now risk arrest amid a string of harsh policies attacking the legitimate rights and freedoms of Uyghurs enacted since Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo was appointed to run the region in August last year. Sources in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yengisar (Yingjisha) county were recently quoted by RFA as saying that Uyghur police officers and their family members are now being targeted as part of the very “stability” measures the officers are responsible for upholding. Yusupjan Nasir, whose sister was arrested in September and jailed for 10 years for promoting the wearing of headscarves, has been removed from his position as an assistant officer at Yengisar county’s Saghan township police station and been demoted to the position of security guard at the township’s Family Planning Department. An officer at the Saghan township police station told RFA that at least one other policeman from the township, Tursunjan Emet, who had been promoted and served for the last five years as an assistant officer patrolling China’s border, was fired after his relatives were arrested for “extremism.”
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