It was nearing midnight and we were exhausted so we decided to book a hotel room for the night. We found a relatively cheap hotel which was priced at 400 Yuan per night. Around sunrise, we were awoken by intrusive knocking. I looked over at my partner with a look of bewilderment; morning call to prayer had already began so I assumed maybe it was custom. The knock persisted, so my partner got out of bed and opened the door revealing two police officers in all black uniform. They spoke saying “You’re [Xiaohongshu] and [partner]?”

My partner looked back at me and we were both stunned. My heart started beating faster while I tried to process what it could be about. And so my partner asked them why they wanted us and saying nothing, one of the officers proceeded to cuff my partner whilst the other asked me to put my shoes on and face my back to him. I cooperated because there was nothing we could do. I know it’s custom for some officers to reveal as little to the detainee as they themselve

Hello all, I hope you have been well and I wish I could say the same for myself. I am refraining from being pessimistic in this moment but as it stands I do not feel too good. This has nothing to do with my health or the health of anyone in my family. Although we're all physically well, what happened left me shocked and unable to process everything. Due to the sensitivity of this subject I won’t object if the mods deem it safer for the community to lock this post.

If you weren’t aware already I had mentioned a few days prior that I made a visit to Xinjiang’s capital Ürümqi to meet with some family members who have been residing there for some years now. We left on Sunday and took a six hour train ride to the capital, where I met my cousins who I hadn't seen in around 5 years which was really nice.

Although my aunt and uncle don't consider themselves political, they share the usual anti-colonial sentiments against the US and have more of an understanding of geopolitics than the ave