China using families as ‘hostages’ to quash Uyghur dissent abroad

July 31, 2023 | BBC | By Sam Judah

Julie Millsap, a US-born activist who works with the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington DC, says China has tried to pressure her through her in-laws.

Her husband is Han Chinese, part of the country’s largest ethnic group, and the two met in China before moving to the US capital in 2020.

After Julie began campaigning on behalf of Uyghurs, local police began dropping in on her extended family in China, saying they “wanted to be friends”.

She and her husband received threatening messages from her sister-in-law’s phone, suggesting Julie‘s children may end up “as orphans”. “They weren’t written in a language style that she used,” says Julie, who suspects the police were instructing her to send them.

During a recent video call between her husband, in Washington DC, and his sister, in China, the police happened to stop by, allowing Julie to record the moment, and confront one of the officers directly.

“He stammered and asked us not to misinterpret his intentions,” she says. The officer told her police were arranging visits to all local families with US relatives, in light of the “delicate” relationship between the US and China.

Julie recognises that a white American and a Han Chinese family are afforded a degree of safety that Uyghurs are not. “But we’re still talking about police harassment, about threats, about a daily reality that is anything but good,” she says.

She thinks it is alarming that Chinese authorities feel comfortable targeting foreign citizens and attempting to dictate their work.

Read the full article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66337328