The houses and farmlands of the 14 prisoners who died in the Aksu camp were sold off

Recently, it was reported on the website of a Facebook user named Abdulshukur Abdulaziz that some farmlands in various parts of Uyghur province were put on the market by Chinese immigrants. In the course of our reporter's investigation based on this clue, it was revealed that the land of 52 families who are "difficult to use the agricultural land" in the village of Aksu was seized and put on the market. Below you will find the program prepared by our reporter Shohret Hoshur.

In 2017, the large-scale kidnapping that started with the construction of the camps, along with the separation of several million people's families, hundreds of side effects of the kidnapping, such as the closing of shops in the markets, the looting of people on the streets, and the desolation of public event venues, emerged in the Uyghur community. The Chinese authorities have been explaining this situation with humorous answers such as the fact that graduates of "vocational training" are fully employed and are not idle. Some posts on social media are revealing some of the more tragic side effects of the grand abduction. According to Facebook user Abdul Shukur Abdulaziz's website, in recent months, Chinese immigrants in Uyghur have been putting land sales ads on the market one after another. Some of these ads feature gardens, while others feature large tracts of farmland. The advertisement below mentions that 10,000 plots of land are for rent near the Mekeet, passing through Maralbeshi. One of these advertisements states that a certain garden has a history of 15-20 years of use, which indicates that these areas were originally built by local residents. Abdushukur Abdureziz's comment on the video, which was copied from Abdureziz Doin, suggests that the land being marketed may be the land of prisoners who died in prisons and camps in Uyghur.

During our phone interviews, we asked about the original owners of these houses and lands that are currently being marketed by Chinese immigrants and the reason for the market. Some officials said they were unaware of the situation, while others did not deny the existence of such a situation. A police officer in the village of Aksu City who received our call revealed that 142 acres of land belonging to 52 families in the village had been put on the market for sale. He said that these families are not making good use of their cultivated land. The authorities sold the land and gave the families 28,000 yuan per square meter. He also said that the process of reclaiming vacant land began in 2019, two years after the camp was abducted. The reclaimed houses and lands were mostly bought by Chinese immigrants. The official also noted that the land, which was bought for 28,000 yuan, is currently being sold between 700,000 yuan and 1.2 million yuan in the rising market. The police officer stressed that the government is "distributing money from the land to the residents from these sold lands" and that "the policy of the center is good", but a part of the 142 acres of land sold belongs to the 14 people who died in the camps and prisons, and the rest of the land is due to the camps. He could not hide his belonging to the local population who had been left out of the labor force.

Last year, a document on the Aksu Provincial People's Bureau mentioned that the divorce rate in the Uyghur community has increased dramatically, due to the long-term separation of men in many families. In a news report from our radio station, it was learned that after the big kidnapping, the banks were unable to collect the loans they gave to the residents, but the debts were being paid to the kidnappers along with interest and penalties.