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Agence France-Presse

All residents in China’s restive region of Xinjiang must hand in their passports to local police stations for “examination and management”, the Global Times newspaper said on Thursday.
“Anyone who needs the passport must apply to the police station,” an anonymous police officer in Aksu prefecture told the paper, adding that the policy had been implemented throughout Xinjiang.
Many members of the more than 10 million-strong Muslim Uygur minority in the region have complained about discrimination – including denials of passport applications – as well as controls on their culture and religion.
China’s new rules for Xinjiang ban parents from encouraging or forcing children into religion
The Global Times article followed numerous reports from cities across the region of tightened passport controls.
In mid-October, the public security bureau in the city of Shihezi posted a directive on a verified social media account asking residents to hand in their passports to police.
It stated: “Those who refuse to hand them in will bear the responsibility themselves should there be consequences such as being forbidden to go abroad.”
The post was later deleted.
Photos of other notices posted on social media showed police stations in various counties and in the regional capital, Urumqi, requesting citizens to hand in passports or stating that new documents would no longer be issued.
Angry questions about the new restrictions abounded on Chinese social media.
“I didn’t spend time and money getting a passport to become the focus of the government’s safeguarding, or to ask for their instructions every time I go out on holiday,” said one incensed user, from the border district of Tacheng, on the Weibo microblogging website.
DNA samples required for travel papers as border area in China’s Xinjiang tightens immigration procedures for Ramadan
The blogger added: “If citizens cannot enjoy even basic rights, how can we live? Would the government please give me a sensible reason for this?”
A second blogger wrote: “Xinjiang is becoming stranger and stranger, regressing as time goes on.”
In June, local state-run media reported that the mostly Kazakh residents of a Xinjiang border district had to give police DNA samples, fingerprints, voiceprints and a “three-dimensional image” in order to apply for certain travel documents, including passports.
A Xinjiang official told the Global Times that the new policy tightening was intended to maintain social order in the region.
Religious freedom in violence-torn Xinjiang ‘unparalleled’, says China’s government
Beijing has regularly accused what it claims are exiled separatist groups, such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, of being behind attacks in Xinjiang, which has seen a wave of deadly unrest.
But many independent experts doubt the strength of overseas Uygur groups and their links to global terrorism, with some saying China exaggerates the threat to justify tough security measures in the resource-rich region.


All residents in China’s restive Xinjiang region must hand in passports to police: media

Many of the 10 million-strong Muslim Uygur minority have complained about discrimination, including denials of passport applications and controls on their culture and religion, in China’s Xinjiang region. Photo: AFP

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