China Detains Hui Muslim Poet Who Spoke Out Against Xinjiang Camps

Authorities in the eastern province of Shandong have detained a Hui Muslim poet and author after he tweeted about the incarceration, surveillance and persecution of Chinese Muslims, both in Xinjiang and across China, RFA has learned. Poet Cui Haoxin—known by his pen name An Ran—was detained by state security police in the provincial capital Jinan on Friday, when families traditionally gather to mark the Lunar New Year.

Cui is currently being held under criminal detention on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently leveled at peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

It was unclear what had triggered his detention, but Cui has been an outspoken critic of China's mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where authorities have placed as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas in a network of internment camps since April 2017.

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