Muslims Pushed to the Fringes of Housing Market
Bitter Winter, 25 November 2018
By Li Zaili Any advert regarding housing that one might see in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi caters exclusively to the Han Chinese, only as the CCP government has made it clear that anyone who transacts with Muslims will be in trouble. For Uyghurs to rent an apartment is becoming mission impossible, even if they have money to pay for a year of rent in full.
Ms. Wang, a Han Chinese resident, put up some of her real estate for sale last year in October. When two community workers visited her to record the details of inhabitants, she was warned against selling it to Uyghurs and told that the transaction would never be processed if she did so.
Similar problems transpire when Uyghurs attempt to sell their property. Sha Yanani (pseudonym) decided to sell her apartment due to her declining health and move somewhere else where she wouldn’t have to climb stairs or use the lift.
When she hired a housing agent, she was told, “Being an Uyghur, you will never be able to sell it to anyone else but to a Han Chinese person.” To date, Ms. Sha hasn’t managed to find a buyer and continues to suffer on account of discriminatory policies. Her brother was not able to sell his apartment for the same reason.
Anti-Uyghur policies have been extended to hospitality establishments outside Xinjiang too. The Xiyuan police station in neighboring Gansu Province’s Lanzhou city recently released a notice, as per which, hotels must inform the police whenever an Uyghur checks in. Anyone who fails to do that is subjected to ‘business suspension for internal rectification.’ As a result, local hotels and guesthouses have stopped taking in Uyghur travelers.
Hui Chinese are also in an analogous predicament. In March, community workers found out about an elderly Hui woman who was living at her daughter’s residence in Xinjiang’s Kuitun city when they were registering the ID details of the residents.
They threatened to move her out of her daughter’s apartment unless she provided the documents proving that she was the mother of her daughter as well as unregistered from her declared place of residence.
However, even after she managed to collect all necessary documentation, jumping through numerous bureaucratic hoops, local community officials told her, “According to our leadership, we’re not going to go through with the processing (of the registered residence), as you are Hui people.”
Reported by Li Zaili