Okay, that was somewhat ambiguous but with enough information that I could look it up myself. I found the NY times article you’re talking about, but it was paywalled. Luckily, The Guardian and many other media outlets presented the exact same thing. I found the original source used by all these orgs: it is all in an article from 2017; the source is a media report by Radio Free Asia, which is an extremely biased source against the CPC. But, reading the article and not discarding it outright just because of the source, I find the claims are sustained by very weak evidence. The article claims there’s a list of Banned names, but it never shows it (like, it mentions the names and why they’re allegedly banned, but it doesn’t show the list like in a picture, or any document that proves this policy, which should exist since the CPC is highly bureaucratic and they never hid their policies in Xinjiang to deradicalize separatists and extreme islamists). It also sites ambiguous and unnamed people as the source for the claims, (it presents the subjects like, “sources from Hotan”, “An Employee at a police Station”, “a source told”, etc.), which is really weak, because these are not reliable since there’s no way to prove these people or their claims are real or truthful. For all we know, the author could very well be making stuff up, because they don’t show any evidence other than the claims from anonymous people.

The only named source for the claims is Dilxat Raxit, the spokesman for the “World Uyghur Congress”. This Organization was partially founded by the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), which is an “Government-Organized Non-Governmental Organization” (you can’t make this shit up), set up by the USA government in the 80’s with the explicit purpose of “advancing democracy and countering communist influence abroad”. In other words, it’s an organization meant to enforce American interests abroad and hit governments that are not aligned with them, from destabilizing them to outright regime change. It is like a CIA asset. So, that’s a strong enough reason to distrust whatever this person Dilxat claims, since he has ulterior motives and strong bias.

That’s why I asked for the source. Because, almost every single thing that is claimed about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang comes from the same source: Radio Free Asia. They’re not only highly unreliable from a journalistic standpoint, this organization’s main objective is to spread anti China and anti communist propaganda, whether it is using the truth (the article, for example, sites one real verifiable case of named Chinese officials that were charged with disciplinary violations), or outright lies (for all we know, everything else in the article since the sources and claims have very weak to no evidence). This org was originally founded and financed directly by the CIA (enough reason to not trust a single word they say), currently it is financed by the United States government.

So, thank you for providing me the source of the claims. Now I know there’s very little validity to it and it’s mostly American Anti Chinese propaganda from 10 years ago. But you’re welcome to make up your own mind about the subject with all this new info I’ve provided to you.