Snapshot of a culture under siege. Our attempt to show what it feels like in Xinjiang right now. Blanketed with surveillance technology and checkpoints, the ancient Silk Road city has the feel of an open-air prison. https://t.co/JdtFEPCw68

Hospitals and schools are swathed in barbed wire. Thousand-dollar surveillance cameras hang along shuttered shopping streets. The stress on the population is palpable. https://t.co/vhVkWxvhaE

After a trip to Kashgar in October, I found old footage I had from 2009. Here’s a video of worshipers streaming into the Id Kah mosque back then. Now during Jummah there’s no call to prayer and almost no worshipers. https://t.co/fUjUrvJPct

Inside the Id Kah mosque, once the center of Kashgar religious life, there are more than 100 cameras. Above the central altar hangs a propaganda shot of the benevolent general secretary of the Communist Party of China who made things this way. https://t.co/01nDYh3UgQ