News Desk
BEIJING — A beloved Uyghur folk ballad once sung at weddings and family gatherings has become the latest casualty of China’s tightening controls in Xinjiang, where authorities are warning residents that listening to, storing or sharing certain Uyghur‑language songs could lead to detention.
The song, “Besh pede,” a plaintive love ballad passed down through generations, is among dozens of tracks labelled “problematic” by local officials in Kashgar, according to a recording of an October meeting obtained by The Associated Press. In the audio, police and party cadres instruct residents to purge banned music from their phones and avoid common Islamic greetings, urging them instead to use phrases praising the Communist Party.
The directives, corroborated by interviews with former Xinjiang residents and rare court documents, offer a window into how cultural expression remains heavily policed in the region despite Beijing’s claims that life has “returned to normal” after the mass detentions of recent years.
China has spent the past decade reshaping Xinjiang through a sweeping security campaign that rights groups and foreign governments say included the extrajudicial detention of more than a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities between 2017 and 2019. A 2022 United Nations report concluded that the abuses may amount to crimes against humanity.
Beijing rejects those findings, insisting its policies have curbed extremism and brought stability. But the new restrictions on music — including songs once broadcast on state television — suggest that the apparatus of control has simply evolved rather than receded.
Researchers say the shift reflects a move from mass internment to more diffuse, everyday forms of surveillance: phone checks, pressure to abandon religious expressions, and the expansion of Mandarin‑only boarding schools that separate children from their families.
“This is the normalization of long‑term control,” said Rian Thum, a historian of Xinjiang at the University of Manchester. “Detention for listening to the wrong music is exactly the kind of thing that never really stopped.”
At the Kashgar meeting, officials outlined seven categories of banned songs, ranging from traditional folk pieces to diaspora recordings. Many were flagged for religious references — even benign invocations of God common in Uyghur love songs.
“That’s precisely the problem,” said Rachel Harris, an ethnomusicologist at SOAS University of London. “Any expression of religion, however ordinary, is treated as suspect.”
Other songs were blacklisted for allegedly promoting separatism or “smearing” Communist Party rule. Several were written or performed by Uyghur artists who have since been detained, including the renowned musician Abdurehim Heyit and the poet Abduqadir Jalalidin.
The consequences can be severe. A 27‑year‑old Uyghur music producer, Yashar Xiaohelaiti, was sentenced last year to three years in prison for uploading 42 songs deemed sensitive to a cloud account. Court documents show he was also punished for downloading e‑books considered problematic.
Former residents told AP that even casual interactions — commenting on a social media post, sharing a song with a friend — can trigger police summonses or detention. In one case, two teenagers were reportedly arrested for exchanging a Uyghur song on WeChat.
Since 2019, China has sought to rebrand Xinjiang as a tourist destination, dismantling some checkpoints and downplaying the existence of the detention camps. But beneath the surface, researchers say, the mechanisms of repression remain intact.
Boarding schools continue to expand. Phone inspections remain routine. Mosques have been repurposed or stripped of religious functions. And cultural expression — from music to language — is tightly monitored.
For Uyghurs abroad, the bans strike at the heart of their identity.
“Music is part of my soul,” said Rahima Mahmut, a Uyghur singer and activist in London. “Erasing it is erasing who we are.”
China’s Foreign Ministry maintains that its policies target terrorism, not culture, accusing “anti‑China forces” of distorting routine law‑enforcement actions. Officials in Xinjiang did not respond to requests for comment.
But the growing list of banned songs, and the punishments attached to them, paint a different picture — one in which even the most ordinary expressions of Uyghur heritage can be construed as threats.
For many in the region, the message is unmistakable: the crackdown has not ended. It has simply changed form.
