The Daily - A Woman’s Journey Through China’s Detention Camps

A last-minute booking, a furtive cab ride and a spy in the window. For the past year, Paul Mozur has been investigating the story of a son determined to free his mother from a repressive system of detention and surveillance in western China. In doing so, he found a crack in China’s surveillance state — and a mother on her deathbed in Xinjiang. Today, we hear from the man’s mother for the first time. Guest: Paul Mozur, a technology reporter for The New York Times based in Shanghai, spoke with Ferkat Jawdat, a Uighur who is an American citizen and lives in Virginia, and his mother in Xinjiang, China. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:The Chinese authorities are using a vast secret system of facial recognition technology to control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority in western China. The government may also be taking citizens’ DNA without consent to enhance the system.“We must be as harsh as them, and show absolutely no mercy.” Leaked documents reveal how the Chinese authorities orchestrated the crackdown on one million or more ethnic Uighurs.If you missed our previous interviews with Mr. Jawdat, here are Part 1 and Part 2.

Duration: 35m
Broadcast on: 09 Dec 2019
Audio Format: other

Today, we hear from the man’s mother for the first time.

Guest: Paul Mozur, a technology reporter for The New York Times based in Shanghai, spoke with Ferkat Jawdat, a Uighur who is an American citizen and lives in Virginia, and his mother in Xinjiang, China. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Background reading:

The Chinese authorities are using a vast secret system of facial recognition technology to control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority in western China. The government may also be taking citizens’ DNA without consent to enhance the system.
“We must be as harsh as them, and show absolutely no mercy.” Leaked documents reveal how the Chinese authorities orchestrated the crackdown on one million or more ethnic Uighurs.
If you missed our previous interviews with Mr. Jawdat, here are Part 1 and Part 2.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply, see CapitalOne.com/BankGuy, Capital One NA. Member FDIC. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bovarro. This is The Daily. For the past year, my colleague Paul Moser has been investigating the story of a son determined to free his mother from a repressive system of detention and surveillance in western China. Today, we hear from the mother herself for the first time. It's Monday, December 9th. So Paul, we have been checking in with you about your reporting on the Uighurs in China for about a year, and we have been talking to you about one family in particular. Remind us who Faircat Jodat is, and what we know about his family. Faircat Jodat is from a Uighur family who live in western China in a place called Xinjiang. The Uighurs are a Muslim minority that the Chinese government views as a threat in part because of their Islam. They see them as an extremist presence in the country, and they have built this extensive system of repression that includes electronic surveillance and also a massive system of camps where more than a million people have been locked up. Many have fled the country to other places like the United States. Faircat is one of those, and Faircat has kind of emerged as an important voice in the United States, trying to raise awareness and talk about what happened because he and his family got out around 2011, but his mother was not able to follow them. And about two years ago, Faircat's mother goes missing. And it turns out she falls into the system of repression and is pulled into the re-education camps there. And it's been quite a ride because when we first talked to him, he had no idea where his mother was. He hadn't seen her for more than a year. And then after we talked to him, you know, we put out a show earlier this year, and a week later, his mother all of a sudden appears. Right, I remember. And he's able to talk to her for the first time in more than a year and a half. He can talk to her over the phone. Right. I remember after we published that first episode about Faircat's mother, the Chinese government made a show of releasing her from the camp and letting her go to her house. But really, she's not actually free. Right. So she's in her house, but she's being monitored at all times. There's cameras and checkpoints just outside. You have local government officials and police checking in on her on a daily basis when she talks to her family. They're monitoring what she says. She has to parrot this sort of propaganda. And meanwhile, her health deteriorated severely in the camps. When she came home, Faircat actually thought she might be on her deathbed. So that's the world she's living in at this moment. Hey, Faircat, it's Paul calling. How you doing? Good. Now, okay? Yes. Give me a couple minutes. Let me find a quieter place. Okay, sure. And I called him again last week because I wanted to talk to him about the decision he made to do something extremely risky in order to save his mother. So yeah, how are you holding up? I know it's kind of a hard week last week. Yeah, too many things happen, but you know, he'll hear. Over the last few months, Faircat's been growing increasingly anxious about how his mother is doing. Even though I can talk to my mom almost every single day right now, I don't know if I was able to get any news about my mom's condition. They talk on the phone nearly every day, but it's clear that she's not being honest with him, and he can't really be fully honest with her. Many of us, we have that worry that's scared that we might hear that our mom passed away. He doesn't really know how she actually is. He doesn't know her state of mind. He doesn't know how bad her health is. And I think most importantly, he doesn't understand what happened to her because there's just no ability to speak honestly about the past couple of years. I really want to know what really happened because saying that people are being tortured, it made me think that my mom is facing those kind of situation. And so I was talking to him and he asked if I could go try to see her, see how she is, and also potentially find out what happened to her.

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