New world news from Time: How Palestinians Can Reunite Under a New Agenda to Counter Israel’s Annexation

In January, President Donald Trump rolled out his much-touted vision for Middle East peace. It sought to formalize Israel’s longstanding colonial settlement enterprise into what it considered a blueprint for a conflict-ending agreement, and was, therefore, met with absolute rejection by the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, the Israeli prime minister announced his intention to pursue what he considered to be an immediate deliverable of Trump’s vision: the annexation of 30% of the landmass of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, territory essential to the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state. The international community warned against the adverse consequences that maneuver might entail for regional peace, security, and normalization.

It does not seem, however, that the Israeli government is about to heed such warnings. It believes that, at the end of the day, the rest of the world will fall quiet — just as it did after the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital two-and-a-half years ago, and the more recent declaration that Israeli settlements were not illegitimate under international law.

The Israeli government gave itself a deadline of July 1 to announce exactly how it will go about the annexation of these lands. However, even if it defers action altogether, that still should leave the Palestinian leadership with important decisions to make. I believe a credible response is urgently needed, and long overdue. That means rethinking our past commitments in order to build a new future together.

The leadership has not been quiet. On May 19, President Mahmoud Abbas declared that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was thereafter absolved of all agreements and understandings with the U.S. and Israeli governments. That was a significant declaration, even though it came after many years of repetitive threats of abandoning the Oslo framework — leading some to wrongly dismiss it as yet another hollow threat.

To me, however, the issue is not whether this declaration is significant but whether it goes far enough. Specifically, is it likely to stop the annexation train? More importantly, will it fundamentally alter the situation that made it possible for Israel to board that train in the first place? The answer to the first question is, at best, a maybe. To the second, it is an unequivocal no.

All is not lost, however. To restore full agency in our quest for freedom and dignity, it is time for the Palestinian leadership to absolve itself of an earlier declaration. The PLO must with haste rethink its 1988 peace initiative —specifically, the willingness to accept a Palestinian state on 22 percent of historic Palestine, under a so-called “two state solution.”

What has this bet the PLO made in 1988 won us? Over three decades of a “peace process” that ended the first intifada and deflated the can-do spirit it inspired, while making it possible for Israel to progressively deepen its occupation. It made it impossible for Palestinians to get anything but self-rule in areas under Israel’s dominion, and gave Israel an important counterargument against charges of apartheid. Is it unreasonable for the Palestinian people to expect their sole legitimate representative to reconsider this gamble?

Instead, the PLO must propose an alternative way forward that could garner broad-based Palestinian support. What the Palestinian people desperately need is a clear statement — a definition upon which we can legitimately pursue our national aspirations. I believe a broad Palestinian national consensus can be built upon a platform committing to either of two options.

The first is anchored on the model of a single state, whose constitution provides for full equality for all of its citizens, and without any discrimination on any basis whatsoever. The second is an agreed two-state solution — but only with an independent and fully sovereign Palestinian state on the entire territory occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and with any engagement in a peace process that is to lead to that outcome preceded by international recognition, including by Israel, of the Palestinians’ right to such state, as well as our other rights provided for under international law—namely, the right of return in accordance with UN resolution 194 and the right to self-determination.

Obviously these two options are mutually exclusive. But, they have to both be included in the new platform to ensure that the PLO—as it begins to take concrete steps to include non-PLO factions and forces opposed to the Oslo framework or the 1988 compromise—is instantaneously empowered to convey, on behalf of all Palestinians, what we are prepared to accept. At some point, Palestinians will have to choose between the two possible options outlined above. That, however, will not happen unless Israel recognizes our national rights.

In the meantime, we should spare no effort to begin the process of reunifying our polity and rebuilding and strengthening our institutions—an especially demanding undertaking after thirteen years of fracture and separation. We need an agenda that empowers us to become the masters of our own destiny. Once we converge on a policy statement built on the options above, we can begin piecing together that agenda.

That is all imminently possible if our leadership signals its willingness to lead on the strength of such a vision. The choice at this moment is ours to make. Once we decide to act, all—near and afar—will begin to realize that our will has not been broken, and that it will never be.

New world news from Time: Europe Restricts Travelers From the U.S. as America’s Coronavirus Cases Surge

The European continent on Tuesday reopened to visitors from 14 countries, but not the U.S., where some of the states that pushed hardest and earliest to reopen their economies are now in retreat because of an alarming surge in confirmed coronavirus infections.

The European Union’s travel decision came a day after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issued an order closing bars, gyms, movie theaters and water parks, and officials in Republican and Democratic strongholds alike mandated the wearing of masks.

The EU extended its ban on travelers not just from the U.S. but from other big countries, such as Russia, Brazil and India, all of which are seeing rapidly rising caseloads.

President Donald Trump suspended the entry of most Europeans in March.

More than 15 million Americans travel to Europe each year, while some 10 million Europeans head across the Atlantic.

In the U.S., places such as Texas, Florida and California are backtracking, closing beaches and bars in some cases amid a resurgence of the virus.

“Our expectation is that our numbers next week will be worse,” Ducey said in Arizona, where for seven times in 10 days, the number of new cases per day has surpassed the 3,000 mark.

Also Monday, Los Angeles announced it will close beaches and ban fireworks displays over the Fourth of July. And New Jersey’s governor announced he is postponing the restarting of indoor dining because people have not been wearing masks or complying with other social-distancing rules.

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Associated Press reporters from around the world contributed to this report.

New world news from Time: ‘It Only Ends When They’re Dead.’ David France on His Chilling HBO Documentary Welcome to Chechnya

Over the last several years, anti-LGBTQ “purges” have taken place in Chechnya, a conservative Russian republic. Chechen officials, according to many reports and testimonies, have rounded up people they believe to be gay, tortured them and then released them to family members who were encouraged to commit “honor killings.”

Fearing for their lives, some young queer people have fled the predominantly Muslim region with the hopes of finding safety outside Russia. Welcome to Chechnya, a documentary by David France premiering June 30 on HBO, follows these refugees and the activists going to extraordinary lengths to help them escape.

Chechen officials have denied that purges took place, saying in one case that gay people do not exist in that part of Russia and if they did, their relatives would be so ashamed that they “would have sent them to where they could never return.” European countries have criticized Russian authorities for allowing a “climate of impunity” in the republic.

Welcome to Chechnya is France’s third documentary. His first, 2012’s How to Survive a Plague, based on his own book of the same name, reflected on the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and earned numerous awards including an Oscar nomination. His second, 2017’s The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, explores the life of the prominent activist. Ahead of the release of his new film, TIME spoke with France about the extreme security measures he put in place for Welcome to Chechnya, what he thinks of the government’s denials and why, despite the risk, Chechens were willing to tell their stories.

TIME: When did you realize you wanted to make this film?

David France: I decided to do the film the minute I realized that this activism was taking place, desperately, in a world that wasn’t helping. No one was covering it. So I just left for Russia.

After working on the film for 18 months, how would you describe the dangers of being gay in Chechnya?

It’s not possible to live if it’s known that you’re gay. The campaign in Chechnya is a cleansing of the blood, as it has been described. It is a mission to round up and exterminate LGBTQ Chechens, and that doesn’t end when people run away. It only ends when they’re dead.

How did you proceed once you got to Russia, given that your subjects would be in danger if they or the film were discovered?

I had an encrypted phone call with the staff from the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives [an organization helping individuals get resettled in other countries] and presented it to them. They felt it was important to show the world what was happening but said that not everyone would want to be in the film, so we made certain ground rules. I hired a local cameraperson and we moved into [one of the safe houses the center was operating].

What were among those ground rules?

We were careful not to take taxi cabs, for example, directly to the place. We were careful to alter our routes and to not appear in any way to be a film crew. We used a very small consumer camera, beat it up and made it look like a tourist thing. When we were filming in public, we taped up the plastic body so that no lights would be shown and operated it with a cell phone. But there were places where we couldn’t even use that.

Many people in the film are “digitally disguised,” with the faces of other people imposed on their own to hide their identities. Was that something you promised at the outset?

That was one of the security issues that I had with the people who were escaping, to get them to trust me. I signed little deals with everybody that said I wanted to shoot their faces, which they hadn’t let anybody else do, and I would protect my footage with my life. I would somehow find a way to disguise them and I would bring that back to them for their approval.

And had you used this technology before? What is it?

We call it face doubling. This technology has not been used before. We had additional burdens: that we could not move any of our footage over the Internet and we couldn’t work with the footage in an open studio setting. So we had to set up a kind of windowless room in order to keep with our security protocols and hire our own team to do it. We developed the IP with [software architect] Ryan Laney. For documentary filmmakers, this is a brand new tool.

Even with the digital disguises, why did people agree to do this? What did they tell you about why it was worth it to them to risk being on film?

Because they want this to end. And so they would participate if it had a chance of getting us closer to safety in Chechnya. They want to go home. They want to go back to their moms. They’re so young, most of them, to be flung out into the world like this. They want to at least be able to call home, and they can’t even do that. This way they were allowed to tell their stories and affirm their lives in a way that didn’t put them in deeper peril.

Do you see the film as a rebuttal to Chechen and Russian officials who say no persecution has taken place or no investigation is necessary?

Yes, it’s absolutely a rebuttal.

What do you feel is the most compelling new evidence you’re offering, knowing we still don’t see the torture itself?

We are telling stories. We are letting people narrate their journeys. And through the activists who are rescuing them, we’re seeing what the danger is to anybody who is queer in Russia and trying to expose this issue in their own country.

Do you believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for putting a stop to this? In your highest hopes, what changes after this film?

Putin is setting the tone here. Putin is rolling back LGBT rights in Russia. Putin is fomenting hatred for queer people in Russia. Putin has given permission for all his regional leaders to carry that out in their own way, and that’s why this is happening now. Putin could call up [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov and say, “Stop,” and Kadyrov would stop. And if we can get that, that’s a beginning.

What else needs to happen?

Kadyrov needs to go, and so do his henchmen. They run a regime of thugs, not just thuggery against the LGBTQ community. They were [threatening] people with pipes for not observing lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic there. It’s a brutal, brutal regime.

Besides investigations and pressure campaigns already going on, what should the international community be doing?

I think it’s really going to have to come from higher levels. European leaders, anybody doing political business or economic business with Russia should demand equal treatment. And they’re not. Washington could stop this.

Given Trump’s record on LGBT rights and his relationship with Russia, do you have hopes of Washington actually stepping in?

No, not while he’s in office.

New world news from Time: India’s Ban of 59 Chinese Apps Is the Latest Test for Beijing’s Faltering ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy

Sino-Indian relations have taken another hit following New Delhi’s decision to ban 59 Chinese apps that it claims pose a “threat to sovereignty and integrity.” The move marks the latest salvo between the nuclear-armed neighbors after a Himalayan border skirmish on June 15 that saw at least 20 killed when troops from both sides clashed with clubs and rocks.

On Monday, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released a statement claiming that popular Chinese apps—including ByteDance’s TikTok, Tencent’s WeChat, Alibaba’s UC Web and Baidu’s map and translation services—were harvesting data and sending it to foreign servers.

“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the ministry said.

Kiranjeet Kaur, a senior manager at market intelligence company International Data Corporation, said that the app ban was clearly spurred by the border clash, which took place in the remote Galwan Valley. “There had to be some ramifications or repercussions after what went on at the border so it’s not that surprising,” she said.

With 120 million local users, TikTok has its largest foreign market in India. The app was briefly blocked last year after a court ruled that some content exposed children to pornography, cyber-bullying and sexualization, but that ban was rescinded following a legal appeal. Many users have now taken to other forms of social media to lament the latest prohibition.

It’s unclear whether the ban augurs a broader Indian decoupling from Chinese tech like that being pursued by the Trump administration, which has sanctioned telecoms giant Huawei and is urging New Delhi to play a bigger strategic role in the Indo-Pacific region. But it is certainly a challenge for China’s faltering “wolf warrior” diplomacy—a bellicose form of statecraft named after a pair of Chinese military blockbusters. Beijing’s hawkish new postures, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have contributed to global anti-China sentiment reaching its highest point since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to China’s Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

“I’m a little bit worried whether top leaders are getting real advice from professionals in the know,” says Prof. Yuan Jingdong, an Asian security expert at the University of Sydney. “Very honest, blunt advice is getting moderated, diluted or distorted so leaders only hear what they prefer to hear.”

Chilling of ties

Quelling this latest spat will take tact. Both neighbors are led by nationalists who have to satisfy the increasingly strident demands of the publics they have stoked. In India, following the Galwan Valley clashes, Chinese flags and pictures of President Xi Jinping were burned in the streets amid calls to boycott Chinese goods and businesses. (Some Chinese retailers in India—such as smartphone market leader Xiaomi—have been protectively pasting “Made in India” signs on their premises.) In turn, many Chinese have taken to social media to mock India for having “no exports to boycott.”

Tarun Pathak, of industry analysts Counterpoint Research, tells TIME that India may be willing to negotiate a truce if Chinese tech firms prove that all the data is locally stored and there are no privacy or security issue with their apps. “It remains to be seen whether this ban is permanent,” he says. “But if the government [withdraws the ban] in 10 or 20 days, the backlash will be fierce.”

In truth, both nations will suffer from a chilling of ties. Bilateral trade stands at $90 billion (though India has a $60 billion deficit.) India’s huge internet market is world’s second biggest and dominated by Chinese firms. Four of India’s top five smartphone makers are Chinese owned, comprising a whopping 81% of total market share. (Due to high import duties, 95% of smartphones sold in the Indian market are manufactured or assembled locally.)

While banning apps is easier that targeting hardware, Indian customs have already begun scrutinizing tech imports from China “more stringently, slowing components entering the country, which ultimately slows down the manufacturing process,” says Kaur.

A tech war between the world’s two most populous nations stands to hamper Chinese growth and threaten tens of thousands of Indian jobs against the backdrop of a coronavirus-related slowdown. India’s 490 million smartphone users constitute an enormous and still under-penetrated market, offering Chinese firms an invaluable opportunity for growth.

The question is whether China can temper its nationalist posture to negotiate a compromise. Recent signs are not good. On top of perennially frosty relations with Japan, South Korea, and rivals in the South China Sea, Beijing is also bickering with Australia over claims of espionage and political interference, Canada over the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wenzhou, and the U.K. over political freedoms in the former British colony of Hong Kong. All of this comes as relations with Washington reach a nadir.

“It’s clearly not good management of diplomacy,” says Prof. Yuan. “When everybody around the world is complaining about Donald Trump, China’s [status] should be on the rise.”

New world news from Time: U.S. Likely to Be Excluded From E.U.’s Travel List

(BRUSSELS) — The European Union is set to make public Tuesday a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter 31 European countries, but most Americans are likely to be refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the U.S.

EU envoys to Brussels have launched a written procedure which would see the list endorsed Tuesday morning as long as no objections are raised by member countries. The list is expected to contain up to 15 countries that have virus infection rates comparable to those in the EU.

Infection rates in Brazil, Russia and India are high too, and they are also unlikely to make the cut.

The countries would also have to lift any bans they might have on European travelers. The list of permitted nations is to be updated every 14 days, with new countries being added or even dropping off depending on if they are keeping the disease under control.

The daily number of new confirmed cases in the United States has surged over the past week. The U.S. has the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with nearly 2.6 million people confirmed infected and over 126,000 dead, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that experts say understates the pandemic’s true toll due to limited testing and other reasons.

In March, President Donald Trump suspended all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone from entering the U.S., making it unlikely now that U.S. citizens would qualify to enter the EU.

The EU imposed restrictions on non-essential travel to its 27 nations, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, which are part of the Schengen open-borders area, in March to halt the spread of the virus. Non-EU citizens who are already living in Europe are not included in the ban.

More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and any delay would be a further blow to virus-ravaged economies and tourism sectors on both sides of the Atlantic. Around 10 million Europeans are thought to cross the Atlantic for vacations and business each year.

Tuesday’s decree will not apply to travel to Britain, which left the EU in January. Britain now requires all incoming travelers — bar a few exceptions like truck drivers — to go into a self-imposed 14-day quarantine, although the measure is under review and is likely to ease in the coming weeks. The requirement also applies to U.K. citizens.

New world news from Time: Singapore Prime Minister’s Brother Decides Not to Run Against Him

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s estranged brother won’t stand in the July 10 election, removing a potential obstacle for the ruling party as it seeks to retain its 55-year grip on power.

“I have chosen not to stand for political office because I believe Singapore does not need another Lee,” Lee Hsien Yang said in a Facebook post after the nomination deadline passed. “I do not seek power, prestige or financial rewards of political office. I hope to be a catalyst for change.”

The younger Lee’s announcement as the nine-day election campaign kicked off Tuesday deflated the hype built up after he joined the opposition Progress Singapore Party. The move fanned expectations he could stand as a candidate against the incumbent People’s Action Party, which has won every contest since independence in 1965.

“This makes the campaign less about the family and personal issues and more about the country’s future,” said Bridget Welsh, honorary research associate at the Asia Research Institute, University of Nottingham Malaysia. “He has more capital outside than as a candidate. It is a very steep hill to climb to victory in Singapore and his chances of winning were low.”

While Singapore doesn’t allow opinion polls, most analysts expect the PAP to easily win again in a race that will see all 93 seats contested by at least two parties for just the second time. Still, any narrowing of its victory margin could reflect an erosion of confidence in its new generation of leaders, particularly regarding how they are handling the pandemic.

Singapore’s current opposition leader Pritam Singh wasn’t optimistic. The head of the Workers’ Party warned the opposition could suffer a “wipeout” in the vote.

“It took us 16 years before one seat fell to the opposition,” Singh said on Tuesday. “So it’s an uphill battle, it is going to be a difficult fight.”

Despite declining to run himself, Lee, 62, will campaign against the ruling party co-founded and built up by his father Lee Kuan Yew, the nation’s founding prime minister, which his older brother now leads. The siblings have been sparring over the estate of their father since his death in 2015, and the rivalry has spilled over into other conflicts embroiling the younger Lee’s wife and son.

‘Fighting for every vote’

Prime Minister Lee said Tuesday that his brother is entitled to speak like anybody else, and the public will “assess which ones are worth listening to, which ones make sense.”

“We’re fighting for every vote,” Lee said in a doorstop with reporters after his candidacy was accepted. “It’s a general election for the most important issues concerning the country at a moment of crisis.”

Campaigning ahead of the July 10 vote will likely focus on Singapore’s response to Covid-19 and its economic fallout. The PAP’s election manifesto hails its ability to steer the country through the coronavirus crisis, while numerous opposition parties will surface issues such as the expected increase in the goods-and-services tax and retrenchment insurance.

Family Drama

Lee Hsien Loong has signaled his intent to make way for his successor ahead of turning 70 in 2022, and that’s widely expected to be current Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat. While the prime minister has largely avoided government scandals since he took office in 2004, the family drama has been brewing in recent years.

The siblings have clashed over Lee Kuan Yew’s will, and in particular, his famous Oxley Road house. Lee Hsien Yang’s wife is in a legal tussle over accusations that she mishandled the will, and his son — an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University — faces a court charge for disparaging remarks about the judicial system that were posted on a private Facebook post.

This will be the first election for the Progress Singapore Party, which was founded last year by former ruling party members who became disgruntled with the government.

The party, led by Tan Cheng Bock, a former PAP lawmaker and presidential candidate, must be “careful that its campaign does not get derailed by unnecessary attention on the younger Lee, whose involvement in the campaign could result in his being larger than life” and eclipsing its key campaign messages, said Eugene Tan, a political analyst and law professor at Singapore Management University.

Here’s what else to look out for as candidates square off:

• Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat will contest in a new area in the east against a group led by the main opposition Workers’ Party.
• The election will feature 31 electoral divisions being contested, comprising 14 single-member constituencies and 17 group representation constituencies, with a total of 93 members of Parliament returned.
• The constitution ensures there will be at least 12 opposition MPs in Parliament after this election, compared to nine in the last legislature. If there are fewer than 12 opposition members elected, non-constituency MPs will be chosen from the opposition candidates who received the most votes.

–With assistance from Ranjeetha Pakiam, Joyce Koh and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen.

New world news from Time: U.S. Restricts Hong Kong’s Access to Sensitive Technology Over Security Law

The Trump administration made it harder to export sensitive American technology to Hong Kong, escalating pressure on China as lawmakers in Beijing prepared to hand down a national security law that limits the former British colony’s autonomy.

The U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement Monday that the security legislation, which China’s top legislative body approved Tuesday, raised concerns about the transfer of key technology. The Commerce Department said it was suspending regulations allowing special treatment to Hong Kong over things including export license exceptions.

“With the Chinese Communist Party’s imposition of new security measures on Hong Kong, the risk that sensitive U.S. technology will be diverted to the People’s Liberation Army or Ministry of State Security has increased, all while undermining the territory’s autonomy,” Ross said, providing little detail on specific impacts. “Further actions to eliminate differential treatment are also being evaluated.”

Exports of sensitive technologies to Hong Kong have previously been treated differently from those to mainland China, where exporters have to apply for special licenses. Those policies were put in place after China agreed to preserve Hong Kong’s “high degree of autonomy” — including civil liberties, free markets and independent courts — for at least 50 years after resuming sovereignty over the city in 1997.

President Donald Trump said after the National People’s Congress first approved the drafting of the security legislation last month that the U.S. would begin the process of eliminating policy exemptions for Hong Kong, including export controls on dual-use technologies. Monday’s announcement likely sets up a tedious application process for companies.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam dismissed U.S. concerns that such sensitive items could make it to the mainland, saying the city had “a stringent trade-control mechanism.” She told reporters at a weekly news briefing that the move would have “minimal” impact.

“Sanctions will not scare us,” Lam said. “We are fully prepared and I believe China will also take countermeasures when needed.”

Hong Kong stocks were little affected by either the trade actions or China’s passage of the national security law, with traders waiting for details about the content of the legislation. The benchmark Hang Seng index rose as much as 1.2% before paring gains.

The U.S. move was the latest as relations with China continue to deteriorate over Hong Kong and other fronts. The president has attempted to blame the country for the spread of the coronavirus, part of his re-election effort against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who has also escalated his criticism of China. Both nations’ warships and combat jets continue to track each other around the contested South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

“There’s no immediate ability to predict a specific negative impact on businesses,” Anna Ashton, a senior director of government affairs at the U.S-China Business Council, told Bloomberg Television. “We’re in the midst of a strategic rethink about the relationship between the U.S. and China. And it’s very difficult to know right in this moment exactly what that means for the business side of the relationship.”

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced visa restrictions against unspecified Chinese officials involved in the Hong Kong actions, drawing a threat of retaliation from Beijing. Pompeo said on Monday that the U.S. would also cease selling defense equipment to Hong Kong, a largely symbolic act that will mostly affect sales with the city’s police and corrections forces.

Trump delivered remarks last Friday that, while harsh, did not threaten specific punishments for the Beijing government.

While the threat of the U.S. ending Hong Kong’s special trading status loomed over a historic wave of unrest that rocked the city for much of last year, it appears to have done little to change President Xi Jinping’s policy toward the city. Beijing has shown an increasing willingness to push back against foreign pressure, as its critics in Hong Kong grow more radical and mainland citizens demand steps to protect the country’s territory from outside influence.

‘Stop Meddling’

“Separatist forces intending to disrupt Hong Kong can clamor as they like and anti-China external forces may try to exert pressure, but neither will stop China’s resolute action to advance the legislation,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular news briefing Monday in Beijing. “We urge the U.S. side to grasp the situation and immediately stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way.”

Hong Kong matters far less to China’s fortunes than it once did, with 12% of the country’s exports going to or through Hong Kong last year, compared with 45% in 1992. Still, the end of Hong Kong’s preferential treatment — which helps makes it an important base for international banks and trading firms — could deal yet another blow to the local economy, which has already been reeling from months of protests followed by the coronavirus outbreak.

U.S. interests could get damaged in the dispute, though. The U.S.’s largest trade surplus in 2018 was with Hong Kong — $31.1 billion. Some 290 U.S. companies had regional headquarters in the city that year and another 434 had regional offices.

“This won’t affect trade much,” said Iris Pang, chief economist for greater China at ING Bank NV. “Re-export is the main function of the ports. That will continue unless the U.S. decides not to export to mainland China.”

–With assistance from Ben Livesey, Nick Wadhams, Jing Li, Bill Faries, Eric Lam and Karen Leigh.

New world news from Time: Hong Kong National Security Law Passes in Beijing Amid Global Concern

A national security law for Hong Kong was passed on Tuesday by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, amid international criticism and fear among pro-democracy figures in the former British colony.

The law prohibits acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

The full text of the legislation has not yet been released, and even Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, acknowledged in a press conference shortly after the passage that she had not seen a full draft. Local media reports that the law is expected to come into effect on July 1, the 23rd anniversary of the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over the territory.

Beijing announced plans at the end of May to bypass Hong Kong’s lawmaking process and implement the laws for the enclave after Hong Kong failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to do so.

Alan Leong, the chairman of the pro-democracy Civic Party and the former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association told TIME that it was “totally unacceptable” that the law was passed without its details being known to Hong Kong officials. He said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be signaling to Hong Kong officials that “They are just here to execute instructions given to them by the CCP.”

Many experts say that Beijing ran out of patience following violent anti-government protests that paralyzed the city for much of the second half of 2019, and plunged the global financial hub into its first recession in a decade. Under the One Country, Two Systems principle, agreed when the United Kingdom retroceded the colony to China, the city of 7.5 million has its own legislature and system of laws and courts. Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the mini-constitution governing the territory, required the Hong Kong government to enact national security laws itself, but local lawmakers could not agree on them.

“The rapid rise of unprecedented violence and calls for independence coupled with a dysfunctional [legislative council] left Beijing government with no alternatives but to enact a law with the hope of preventing the worse from happening,” Ronny Tong, a member of the Executive Council, Hong Kong’s de facto cabinet, tells TIME. “We can only hope that a proper balance will be struck between protecting national safety and integrity on the one hand and preserving the freedoms and core values of the people of Hong Kong on the other.”

The Chinese government says that matters of national security are the responsibility of Beijing, and that Hong Kong, like jurisdictions across the world, should have a national security law in place.

The Chinese foreign ministry said in June that the Hong Kong protests, which have seen thousands injured and arrested and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, made the national security legislation a matter of “the greatest urgency.”

“Some separatists even made a public appeal for foreign sanctions against China and invited the U.S. military to Hong Kong,” the statement said. “Forceful measures are therefore required to prevent, forestall and punish these acts,” the statement said.

Some experts say the law was rushed through to avoid further mass unrest. “[Chinese authorities] were afraid of the popular reaction,” Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), told TIME. “They want to make sure it’s going to be promulgated as soon as possible before people get organized and start protesting against it.”

How have the U.S. and other governments responded?

Beijing’s increasing hold over Hong Kong has been a point of contention between the U.S. and China. Following the Communist Party’s decision to roll out national security laws for the territory, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Hong Kong was no longer sufficiently autonomous from mainland China, a decision that puts the city’s special trade and economic relationship with the U.S. at risk. The Senate approved legislation June 25 to require sanctions against entities deemed to violate the promises China made to Hong Kong at the time of its 1997 handover—and against foreign financial firms that knowingly conducts “significant transactions” with those entities.

On June 26, Pompeo announced that the State Department would impose visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party officials that it believes are undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, and restricting its human rights.

And on Monday, the U.S. announced that it will stop exporting U.S. defense equipment to Hong Kong. “We cannot risk these items falling into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, whose primary purpose is to uphold the dictatorship of the CCP by any means necessary,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The European Parliament has meanwhile passed a non-binding resolution urging European Union member states to adopt “sanctions and asset freezes against Chinese officials responsible for devising and implementing policies that violate human rights.” It also recommended that the EU and its member states file a case before the International Court of Justice once the national security law was passed.

On June 26, about 50 United Nations rights experts denounced the repression of “fundamental freedoms” in China, highlighting the “repression of protests and democracy advocacy” in Hong Kong. The experts urged the Chinese government to withdraw the legislation.

The U.K. has said that if the law is implemented, it will amend immigration laws to make it easier for some Hongkongers to live in the country. Taiwan also said it will help Hongkongers who want to move to the island.

In response to the international criticism, Chinese officials have urged the U.S. and other governments to stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs. In retaliation for visa restrictions announced by the U.S., Beijing said on Monday it will impose visa restrictions on some Americans with “egregious conduct relating to Hong Kong.”

How have Hong Kong protesters responded?

The introduction of the national security legislation has sparked fresh unrest in Hong Kong, albeit on a reduced scale. More than 50 people protesting against the law were arrested on Sunday. Despite a police ban on the annual July 1 protest march, some activists are planning to demonstrate anyway.

Experts expect that the national security law might further dissuade moderate protesters, many of whom began to shy away from attending demonstrations late last year as the protests became increasingly violent.

“Some people might be afraid,” Willy Lam, an expert in Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, tells TIME. “Protests against the law might be construed as subversion of state power.”

Ahead of the law’s passage, some protesters have deleted or wiped out content from social media accounts for fear that past posts might incriminate them.

HKBU’s Cabestan said demonstrators might be more cautious about what slogans they chant and signs they carry going forward—protesters have frequently waved American and other foreign flags and called on foreign governments to come to their aid, and calls for Hong Kong independence have become increasingly popular at protests in recent weeks

But, he says, the implementation of the law may exacerbate tensions between young Hong Kongers and the police, and lead to more confrontations. “There’s one thing the law cannot change, the mindset,” he said. “I think if anything the new law is going to consolidate the anti-China mindset among a lot of young Hongkongese.”

One young protester told TIME that the law won’t stop him from taking to the streets.

“Nothing can stop us, we have lost so much already,” said W., a 20-year-old university student who asked to go by his initial for safety reasons. “We know it’s risky but there’s no turning back, the only thing we can do is resist until the end.”

New world news from Time: India Bans TikTok, Dozens More China-Linked Apps, Citing Security Concerns

(NEW DELHI) — India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, saying their activities endanger the country’s sovereignty, defense and security.

India’s decision comes as its troops are involved in a tense standoff with Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh in the Himalayas that started last month. India lost 20 soldiers in a June 15 clash.

Read more: China and India Try to Cool Nationalist Anger After Deadly Border Clash

The banned apps include TikTok, UC Browser WeChat and Bigo Live, as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory and Shein, that are used in mobile and non-mobile devices connected to the Internet, according to a government statement.

“The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India,” the statement said.

It said there have been mounting concerns about data security and safeguarding the privacy of 1.3 billion Indians. The government said such concerns also pose a threat to sovereignty and security of the country.

The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and the defense of India was “a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the statement continued.

New world news from Time: Iran Issues Arrest Warrant for President Trump, Asks For Interpol Assistance

(TEHRAN, Iran) — Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believes carried out the U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, a local prosecutor reportedly said Monday.

Interpol later said it wouldn’t consider Iran’s request, meaning Trump faces no danger of arrest. However, the charges underscore the heightened tensions between Iran and the United States since Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr said Trump and 35 others whom Iran accuses of involvement in the Jan. 3 strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad face “murder and terrorism charges,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Read more: Why the U.S. Assassination of Soleimani Is a Windfall for Iran’s Mullahs

Alqasimehr did not identify anyone else sought other than Trump, but stressed that Iran would continue to pursue his prosecution even after his presidency ends.

Alqasimehr also was quoted as saying that Iran requested a “red notice” be put out for Trump and the others, which represents the highest-level arrest request issued by Interpol. Local authorities generally make the arrests on behalf of the country that requests it. The notices cannot force countries to arrest or extradite suspects, but can put government leaders on the spot and limit suspects’ travel.

After receiving a request, Interpol meets by committee and discusses whether or not to share the information with its member states. Interpol has no requirement for making any of the notices public, though some do get published on its website.

Interpol later issued a statement saying its guidelines for notices forbids it from “any intervention or activities of a political” nature.

Interpol “would not consider requests of this nature,” it said.

Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, dismissed the arrest warrant announcement during a news conference in Saudi Arabia on Monday. “It’s a propaganda stunt that no one takes seriously and makes the Iranians look foolish,” Hook said.

The U.S. killed Soleimani, who oversaw the Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, and others in the January strike near Baghdad International Airport. It came after months of rising tensions between the two countries. Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike targeting American troops in Iraq.

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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

New world news from Time: China to Impose Visa Ban on Americans Interfering With Hong Kong National Security Legislation

China will impose a visa ban on U.S. citizens who interfere with sweeping national security legislation planned for Hong Kong, a move that comes shortly after the Trump administration imposed them on some officials in Beijing.

“As a response to the U.S.’s wrongful decision to impose visa bans on Chinese officials, China decides to impose visa bans on Americans who behave badly in Hong Kong affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters at a regular briefing in Beijing on Monday, without naming any specific targets.

“Who will be the targets? Relevant people would know clearly themselves,” Zhao added.

The U.S. State Department on Friday imposed visa bans on unspecified Chinese Communist Party officials accused of infringing the freedom of Hong Kong citizens, in what a senior official described as the opening salvo in a campaign to force Beijing to back off from new restrictions on the city.

The tit-for-tat bans come amid months of worsening tensions between the U.S. and China across fronts including their ongoing trade war and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The security legislation — which would bar subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in Hong Kong — has fueled resurgent pro-democracy protests in the former British colony. It has raised fears about the city’s future autonomy from China and whether basic freedoms will remain protected.

Chinese lawmakers are meeting in Beijing to discuss the legislation, and Hong Kong’s Now TV News reported that a vote could come Tuesday morning — the day before the anniversary of the 1997 handover to China.

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said Friday that he was halting travel to the U.S. by current and former officials from China’s ruling Communist Party who are believed to be “responsible for, or complicit in, undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.”

The bans are largely symbolic as officials from both countries are unlikely to visit the other, especially now that the coronavirus pandemic has shut down most international flights. The U.S. has imposed strict limits on travelers from China, and most foreigners are not allowed to enter China.

New world news from Time: Gilead Prices Coronavirus Drug Remdesivir at $2,340 for Rich Countries

The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill COVID-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries.

Gilead Sciences announced the price Monday for remdesivir, and said the price would be $3,120 for patients with private insurance. The amount that patients pay out of pocket depends on insurance, income and other factors.

“We’re in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel medicine, in a pandemic,” Gilead’s chief executive, Dan O’Day, told The Associated Press.

“We believe that we had to really deviate from the normal circumstances” and price the drug to ensure wide access rather than based solely on value to patients, he said.

However, the price was swiftly criticized; a consumer group called it “an outrage” because of the amount taxpayers invested toward its development.

The treatment courses that the company has donated to the U.S. and other countries will run out in about a week, and the prices will apply to the drug after that, O’Day said.

In the U.S., federal health officials have allocated the limited supply to states, but that agreement with Gilead will end after September. They said Monday that the government has secured more than 500,000 additional courses that Gilead will produce starting in July to supply to hospitals through September.

“We should have sufficient supply … but we have to make sure it’s in the right place at the right time,” O’Day said

In 127 poor or middle-income countries, Gilead is allowing generic makers to supply the drug; two countries are doing that for around $600 per treatment course.

Remdesivir’s price has been highly anticipated since it became the first medicine to show benefit in the pandemic, which has killed more than half a million people globally in six months.

The drug interferes with the coronavirus’s ability to copy its genetic material. In a U.S. government-led study, remdesivir shortened recovery time by 31% — 11 days on average versus 15 days for those given just usual care. It had not improved survival according to preliminary results after two weeks of followup; results after four weeks are expected soon.

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a nonprofit group that analyzes drug prices, said remdesivir would be cost-effective in a range of $4,580 to $5,080 if it saved lives. But recent news that a cheap steroid called dexamethasone improves survival means remdesivir should be priced between $2,520 and $2,800.

“This is a high price for a drug that has not been shown to reduce mortality,” Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic said in an email. “Given the serious nature of the pandemic, I would prefer that the government take over production and distribute the drug for free. It was developed using significant taxpayer funding.”

Peter Maybarduk, a lawyer at the consumer group Public Citizen, called the price “an outrage.”

“This is a drug that received at least $70 million in public funding” toward its development, he said. “Remdesivir should be in the public domain.”

Gilead says it will have spent $1 billion on developing and making the drug by the end of this year.

The drug is has emergency use authorization in the U.S. and Gilead has applied for full approval.

New world news from Time: China Forces Birth Control on Uighurs to Suppress Population

The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.

While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide.”

The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang.

The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.

After Gulnar Omirzakh, a Chinese-born Kazakh, had her third child, the government ordered her to get an IUD inserted. Two years later, in January 2018, four officials in military camouflage came knocking at her door anyway. They gave Omirzakh, the penniless wife of a detained vegetable trader, three days to pay a $2,685 fine for having more than two children.

If she didn’t, they warned, she would join her husband and a million other ethnic minorities locked up in internment camps—often for having too many children.

“God bequeaths children on you. To prevent people from having children is wrong,” said Omirzakh, who tears up even now thinking back to that day. “They want to destroy us as a people.”

The result of the birth control campaign is a climate of terror around having children, as seen in interview after interview. Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone _ compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show.

The hundreds of millions of dollars the government pours into birth control has transformed Xinjiang from one of China’s fastest-growing regions to among its slowest in just a few years, according to new research obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication by China scholar Adrian Zenz.

“This kind of drop is unprecedented….there’s a ruthlessness to it,” said Zenz, a leading expert in the policing of China’s minority regions. “This is part of a wider control campaign to subjugate the Uighurs.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry referred multiple requests for comment to the Xinjiang government, which did not respond. However, Chinese officials have said in the past that the new measures are merely meant to be fair, allowing both Han Chinese and ethnic minorities the same number of children.

For decades, China had one of the most extensive systems of minority entitlements in the world, with Uighurs and others getting more points on college entrance exams, hiring quotas for government posts and laxer birth control restrictions. Under China’s now-abandoned ‘one child’ policy, the authorities had long encouraged, often forced, contraceptives, sterilization and abortion on Han Chinese. But minorities were allowed two children _ three if they came from the countryside.

Under President Xi Jinping, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, those benefits are now being rolled back. In 2014, soon after Xi visited Xinjiang, the region’s top official said it was time to implement “equal family planning policies” for all ethnicities and “reduce and stabilize birth rates.” In the following years, the government declared that instead of just one child, Han Chinese could now have two, and three in Xinjiang’s rural areas, just like minorities.

But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims, like Omirzakh, are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law.

State-backed scholars have warned for years that large rural religious families were at the root of bombings, knifings and other attacks the Xinjiang government blamed on Islamic terrorists. The growing Muslim population was a breeding ground for poverty and extremism, “heightening political risk,” according to a 2017 paper by the head of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences. Another cited as a key obstacle the religious belief that “the fetus is a gift from God.”

Outside experts say the birth control campaign is part of a state-orchestrated assault on the Uighurs to purge them of their faith and identity and forcibly assimilate them into the dominant Han Chinese culture. They’re subjected to political and religious re-education in camps and forced labor in factories, while their children are indoctrinated in orphanages. Uighurs, who are often but not always Muslim, are also tracked by a vast digital surveillance apparatus.

“The intention may not be to fully eliminate the Uighur population, but it will sharply diminish their vitality, making them easier to assimilate,” said Darren Byler, an expert on Uighurs at the University of Colorado.

Some go a step further.

“It’s genocide, full stop. It’s not immediate, shocking, mass-killing on the spot type genocide, but it’s slow, painful, creeping genocide,” said Joanne Smith Finley, who works at Newcastle University in the U.K. “These are direct means of genetically reducing the Uighur population.”

_____

For centuries, the majority was Muslim in the arid, landlocked region China now calls “Xinjiang”—meaning “New Frontier” in Mandarin.

After the People’s Liberation Army swept through in 1949, China’s new Communist rulers ordered thousands of soldiers to settle in Xinjiang, pushing the Han population from 6.7% that year to more than 40% by 1980. The move sowed anxiety about Chinese migration that persists to this day. Drastic efforts to restrict birth rates in the 1990s were relaxed after major pushback, with many parents paying bribes or registering children as the offspring of friends or other family members.

That all changed with an unprecedented crackdown starting in 2017, throwing hundreds of thousands of people into prisons and camps for alleged “signs of religious extremism” such as traveling abroad, praying or using foreign social media. Authorities launched what several notices called “dragnet-style” investigations to root out parents with too many children, even those who gave birth decades ago.

“Leave no blind spots,” said two county and township directives in 2018 and 2019 uncovered by Zenz, who is also an independent contractor with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a bipartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. “Contain illegal births and lower fertility levels,” said a third.

Officials and armed police began pounding on doors, looking for kids and pregnant women. Minority residents were ordered to attend weekly flag-raising ceremonies, where officials threatened detention if they didn’t register all their children, according to interviews backed by attendance slips and booklets. Notices found by the AP show that local governments set up or expanded systems to reward those who report illegal births.

In some areas, women were ordered to take gynecology exams after the ceremonies, they said. In others, officials outfitted special rooms with ultrasound scanners for pregnancy tests.

“Test all who need to be tested,” ordered a township directive from 2018. “Detect and deal with those who violate policies early.”

Abdushukur Umar was among the first to fall victim to the crackdown on children. A jovial Uighur tractor driver-turned-fruit merchant, the proud father considered his seven children a blessing from God.

But authorities began pursuing him in 2016. The following year, he was thrown into a camp and later sentenced to seven years in prison _ one for each child, authorities told relatives.

“My cousin spent all his time taking care of his family, he never took part in any political movements,” Zuhra Sultan, Umar’s cousin, said from exile in Turkey. “How can you get seven years in prison for having too many children? We’re living in the 21st century—this is unimaginable.”

Fifteen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP they knew people interned or jailed for having too many children. Many received years, even decades in prison.

Leaked data obtained and corroborated by the AP showed that of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children—the most common reason for holding them. Time in a camp—what the government calls “education and training”—for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by Zenz confirmed.

In 2017, the Xinjiang government also tripled the already hefty fines for violating family planning laws for even the poorest residents _ to at least three times the annual disposable income of the county. While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay, according to interviews and data. Government reports show the counties collect millions of dollars from the fines each year.

In other efforts to change the population balance of Xinjiang, China is dangling land, jobs and economic subsidies to lure Han migrants there. It is also aggressively promoting intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uighurs, with one couple telling the AP they were given money for housing and amenities like a washing machine, refrigerator and TV.

“It links back to China’s long history of dabbling in eugenics….you don’t want people who are poorly educated, marginal minorities breeding quickly,” said James Leibold, a specialist in Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe in Melbourne. “What you want is your educated Han to increase their birth rate.”

Sultan describes how the policy looks to Uighurs like her: “The Chinese government wants to control the Uighur population and make us fewer and fewer, until we disappear.”

___________

Once in the detention camps, women are subjected to forced IUDs and what appear to be pregnancy prevention shots, according to former detainees. They are also made to attend lectures on how many children they should have.

Seven former detainees told the AP that they were force-fed birth control pills or injected with fluids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods. After being released and leaving China, some went to get medical check-ups and found they were sterile.

It’s unclear what former detainees were injected with, but Xinjiang hospital slides obtained by the AP show that pregnancy prevention injections, sometimes with the hormonal medication Depo-Provera, are a common family planning measure. Side effects can include headaches and dizziness.

Dina Nurdybay, a Kazakh woman, was detained in a camp which separated married and unmarried women. The married women were given pregnancy tests, Nurdybay recalled, and forced to have IUDs installed if they had children. She was spared because she was unmarried and childless.

One day in February 2018, one of her cellmates, a Uighur woman, had to give a speech confessing what guards called her “crimes.” When a visiting official peered through the iron bars of their cell, she recited her lines in halting Mandarin.

“I gave birth to too many children,” she said. “It shows I’m uneducated and know little about the law.”

“Do you think it’s fair that Han people are only allowed to have one child?” the official asked, according to Nurdybay. “You ethnic minorities are shameless, wild and uncivilized.”

Nurdybay met at least two others in the camps whom she learned were locked up for having too many children. Later, she was transferred to another facility with an orphanage that housed hundreds of children, including those with parents detained for giving birth too many times. The children counted the days until they could see their parents on rare visits.

“They told me they wanted to hug their parents, but they were not allowed,” she said. “They always looked very sad.”

Another former detainee, Tursunay Ziyawudun, said she was injected until she stopped having her period, and kicked repeatedly in the lower stomach during interrogations. She now can’t have children and often doubles over in pain, bleeding from her womb, she said.

Ziyawudun and the 40 other women in her “class” were forced to attend family planning lectures most Wednesdays, where films were screened about impoverished women struggling to feed many children. Married women were rewarded for good behavior with conjugal visits from their husbands, along with showers, towels, and two hours in a bedroom. But there was a catch – they had to take birth control pills beforehand.

Some women have even reported forced abortions. Ziyawudun said a “teacher” at her camp told women they would face abortions if found pregnant during gynecology exams.

A woman in another class turned out to be pregnant and disappeared from the camp, she said. She added that two of her cousins who were pregnant got rid of their children on their own because they were so afraid.

Another woman, Gulbakhar Jalilova, confirmed that detainees in her camp were forced to abort their children. She also saw a new mother, still leaking breast milk, who did not know what had happened to her infant. And she met doctors and medical students who were detained for helping Uighurs dodge the system and give birth at home.

In December 2017, on a visit from Kazakhstan back to China, Gulzia Mogdin was taken to a hospital after police found WhatsApp on her phone. A urine sample revealed she was two months pregnant with her third child. Officials told Mogdin she needed to get an abortion and threatened to detain her brother if she didn’t.

During the procedure, medics inserted an electric vacuum into her womb and sucked her fetus out of her body. She was taken home and told to rest, as they planned to take her to a camp.

Months later, Mogdin made it back to Kazakhstan, where her husband lives.

“That baby was going to be the only baby we had together,” said Mogdin, who had recently remarried. “I cannot sleep. It’s terribly unfair.”

___________

The success of China’s push to control births among Muslim minorities shows up in the numbers for IUDs and sterilization.

In 2014, just over 200,000 IUDs were inserted in Xinjiang. By 2018, that jumped more than 60 percent to nearly 330,000 IUDs. At the same time, IUD use tumbled elsewhere in China, as many women began getting the devices removed.

A former teacher drafted to work as an instructor at a detention camp described her experience with IUDs to the AP.

It started with flag-raising assemblies at her housing compound at the beginning of 2017, where residents were forced to chant: “If we have too many children, we’re religious extremists….That means we have to go to the training centers.” After every flag-raising ceremony, police rounded up parents with too many children – over 180 – until “not a single one was left,” she said. Officers with guns and tasers hauled her neighbors away at night, and from time to time pounded on her door and swept her apartment for Qurans, knives, prayer mats and of course children.

“Your heart would leap out of your chest,” she said.

Then, that August, officials in the teacher’s compound were told to install IUDs on all women of childbearing age. She protested, saying she was nearly 50 with just one child and no plans to have more. Officials threatened to drag her to a police station and strap her to an iron chair for interrogation.

She was forced into a bus with four armed officers and taken to a hospital where hundreds of Uighur women lined up in silence, waiting for IUDs to be inserted. Some wept quietly, but nobody dared say a word because of the surveillance cameras hanging overhead.

Her IUD was designed to be irremovable without special instruments. The first 15 days, she got headaches and nonstop menstrual bleeding.

“I couldn’t eat properly, I couldn’t sleep properly. It gave me huge psychological pressure,” she said. “Only Uighurs had to wear it.”

Chinese health statistics also show a sterilization boom in Xinjiang.

Budget documents obtained by Zenz show that starting in 2016, the Xinjiang government began pumping tens of millions of dollars into a birth control surgery program and cash incentives for women to get sterilized. While sterilization rates plunged in the rest of the country, they surged seven-fold in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2018, to more than 60,000 procedures. The Uighur-majority city of Hotan budgeted for 14,872 sterilizations in 2019 _ about 34% of all married women of childbearing age.

Even within Xinjiang, policies vary widely, being harsher in the heavily Uighur south than the Han-majority north. In Shihezi, a Han-dominated city where Uighurs make up just 2% of the population, the government subsidizes baby formula and hospital birth services to encourage more children, state media reported.

Zumret Dawut got no such benefits. In 2018, the mother of three was locked in a camp for two months for having an American visa.

When she returned home under house arrest, officials forced her to get gynecology exams every month, along with all other Uighur women in her compound. Han women were exempted. They warned that if she didn’t take what they called “free examinations”, she could end up back in the camp.

One day, they turned up with a list of at least 200 Uighur women in her compound with more than two children who had to get sterilized, Dawut recalled.

“My Han Chinese neighbors, they sympathized with us Uighurs,” Dawut said. “They told me, ‘oh, you’re suffering terribly, the government is going way too far!’”

Dawut protested, but police again threatened to send her back to the camp. During the sterilization procedure, Han Chinese doctors injected her with anesthesia and tied her fallopian tubes _ a permanent operation. When Dawut came to, she felt her womb ache.

“I was so angry,” she said. “I wanted another son.”

___________

Looking back, Omirzakh considers herself lucky.

After that frigid day when officials threatened to lock her up, Omirzakh called relatives around the clock. Hours before the deadline, she scraped together enough money to pay the fine from the sale of her sister’s cow and high-interest loans, leaving her deep in debt.

For the next year, Omirzakh attended classes with the wives of others detained for having too many children. She and her children lived with two local party officials sent specially to spy on them. When her husband was finally released, they fled for Kazakhstan with just a few bundles of blankets and clothes.

The IUD still in Omirzakh’s womb has now sunk into her flesh, causing inflammation and piercing back pain, “like being stabbed with a knife.” For Omirzakh, it’s a bitter reminder of everything she’s lost _ and the plight of those she left behind.

“People there are now terrified of giving birth,” she said. “When I think of the word ‘Xinjiang,’ I can still feel that fear.”