T
he order came through a police automation system in Ürümqi, the largest city in China’s northwest Xinjiang region. The system had distributed a report an “intelligence information judgment,” as local authorities called it that the female relative of a purported extremist had been offered free travel to Yunnan, a picturesque province to the south.
The woman found the offer on the smartphone messaging app WeChat, in a group known simply as “Travelers.” Authorities homed in on the group because of ethnic and family ties; its members included Muslim minorities like Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, who speak languages beside China’s predominant one, Mandarin. “This group has over 200 ethnic-language people,” the order stated. “Many of them are relatives of incarcerated people. Recently, many intelligence reports revealed that there is a tendency for relatives of [extremist] people to gather. This situation needs major attention. After receiving this information, p