The government in China has been accused of targeting intellectuals as a way to dilute, or even erase, the Uighur culture, language and identity.
BEIJING — For 15 years, Yalqun Rozi skillfully navigated state bureaucracies to publish textbooks that taught classic poems and folk tales to millions of his fellow minority Uighurs in China's far western region of Xinjiang.
As one of the first prominent people to be detained, Rozi's story illustrates how even Uighurs who toed the party line and were accepted by the government have been rebranded enemies of the state amid the widening campaign of surveillance and detention underway in Xinjiang. Rozi's friends, family, and former classmates describe him as sharp, disciplined and very careful, standing out for his political and business savvy. As a college student in the 1980s, he stayed away from the pro-democracy movements that were roiling China and avoided socializing with known activists.
When the government tapped Rozi in 2001 to head a committee in charge of compiling Uighur literature textbooks, he leapt at the chance. Rozi was arrested soon after Chen Quanguo, a hard-line politician, became Xinjiang's top official in 2016 and his books were pulled from shelves. Experts say the campaign against Rozi's books is part of a systematic effort by Beijing to distance young Uighurs from their language and culture, including by putting thousands of Uighurs in Mandarin-only orphanages and boarding schools .
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