Married Chinese Muslim women are regularly forced to share the same bed as male officials sent by government to monitor them when their husbands are being indoctrinated in internment camps, it has been revealed.
Uighur wives from China's Xinjiang Province have been required to 'invite' inspectors into their homes under a mandatory surveillance programme when their spouses are under detention, according to reports.
Beijing has faced widespread criticism after being accused of detaining at least one million Muslims in re-education centres in the far-western region.
With their husbands away from home, those Muslim women must provide information about their lives and political views to the male inspectors, who call themselves their 'relatives', it is reported.
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They are encouraged to 'develop feelings' towards each other, one official claimed.
'The "relatives" come to visit us here every two months… they stay with their paired relatives day and night,' one Communist official from the county of Yengisar in Kashgar prefecture told Radio Free Asia.
'They help [the families] with their ideology, bringing new ideas. They talk to them about life, during which time they develop feelings for one another,' he said.
The official added that 70 to 80 families in the township he oversaw had Han 'relatives' staying for up to six days at each family during the mandatory home doctrinal programme. Most of the relatives were said to be male.
The state-led campaign, called 'Pair Up and Become Family', was imposed in the predominantly Muslim province in early 2018, according to Human Rights Watch.
'Muslim families across Xinjiang are now literally eating and sleeping under the watchful eye of the state in their own homes,' said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at the New York-based pressure group.
'The latest drive adds to a whole host of pervasive - and perverse - controls on everyday life in Xinjiang.'
The news came as Beijing is reportedly encouraging Han men to marry Uighur women in order to teach them what the government views as the 'correct' ideology.
The central government is aiming to attract single men in inland China to move to the Muslim region and take Muslim wives, according to separate report from Radio Free Asia.
Those who follow the policy are set to receive free land and housing incentives, the report said.
About 30 million men in China, mostly Han, can't find wives due to the country's gender imbalance issue.
UN experts and activists have claimed that at least one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are held in the detention centres in Xinjiang.
China describes them as 'vocational training centres' which they say could help stamp out extremism and give people new skills.
Former detainees previously revealed that Muslims were forced to eat pork and speak Mandarin in those internment camps.
China has also kept thousands of Uighur children away from their Muslim parents before indoctrinating them in camps posing as schools and orphanages, studies show.
Beijing last month claimed that all of its citizens, including more than 20 million Muslims, were enjoying unprecedented human rights and freedoms while living more happily than ever before.
'The Chinese government values, protects and promotes human rights highly,' said Hua Chunying, a spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry.
Hua's statement came after US Vice President Mike Pence slammed the country's human rights situation and its crackdown on Muslims.
Pence said: 'Millions of ethnic and religious minorities in China are struggling against the [Communist] party's efforts to eradicate their religious and cultural identities'.
Human rights activists have called on French President Emmanuel Macron who is on an official trip to China to publicly press the country's President Xi to close 'political education' camps in Xinjiang.
Macron arrived in Shanghai today and will hold talks with Xi.
Zhu Jing, a European affairs official at China's foreign ministry, said Beijing had prepared the 'friendliest and warmest welcome' for the French leader.
But Zhu also warned that on human rights, the two countries should have 'constructive' dialogue and avoid 'mutually criticising each other or politicising the issue'.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
