The reason behind the husband’s death is equally uncertain, except to say that he died in prison in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) when serving a sentence for the “crime” of accessing overseas websites, one of six men from the same village to leave this world in similar circumstances.

More stories like this are imminent, as China is cracking down on the use of both foreign and domestic social media by Uyghurs, which may presage yet another wave of repression because it severs their already minimal ability to tell the rest of the world about what is happening in their homeland.

While non-Uyghur citizens are afforded greater internet freedom, they had better be careful how they use it. Authorities are deleting “personas that go against public order and morals,” livestreams where guests inconveniently ask whether Chinese President Xi Jinping might be a dictator and micro-dramas that portray unharmonious families in what is supposed to be the child-raising paradise of the Middle Kingdom.

The communications attack continued more widely as Apple complied with a government request to bolt the door on Chinese citizens by denying them the ability to download apps such as Signal, Telegram, Threads and WhatsApp, which previously could have been accessed through virtual private networks. Separately, it was revealed that almost every single keyboard app for typing Chinese contained a vulnerability enabling keystroke data to be intercepted.

[Edit typo.]