Like in Urumqi and Turpan, Kashgar is blanketed in the omnipresent sound of police sirens. This is not so much because of the prevalence of crime. Instead, it is because ethnic tension has been racheted up. The police want to have boots on the ground, to discourage any large-scale violence.

But I have been able to discern another reason why the police seem ubiquitous, and it is far more disconcerting. In other places in China, the police are relatively circumspect. I rarely see them in convoys running traffic lights, ignoring others in traffic and police rarely carry guns. Police in China play a largely quiet role. Here in Xinjiang, and it is most apparent in Kashgar, the situation is more militarized. Guns seem ever present, and they roll through town with armored vehicles, completely stopping traffic as they move through.

Watching the Chinese police, I have come to realize that Kashgar is being treated like an occupied city under a police state. It is rare we went a minute in our hotel room without hearing a siren ring out from the thoroughfare below. Cameras are everywhere and the police seem to be the ones in charge, which is why they so flippantly ignore everyday laws, unlike in the rest of China.

This state of constant surveillance pervades everything, including religion. Many Muslim students and government workers have been forced to eat during the Ramadan fast. I have heard stories of schools having large feasts during the middle of Ramadan, with security officials reporting on who does and does not eat.

The night before Eid, security forces set up a road block beneath our hotel. I stood outside, watching for as long as I could. The two people they made leave their vehicles and get more thoroughly checked were two Uighur men riding alone as passengers in taxis. All others were waved through after a quick inspection.

Outside of one police station, I saw a mother begging for her child. The child remained inside the fence that marked the police station, the mother outside. A cop listened. I understood nothing, as they all were speaking in Uighur, but I comprehended the mother’s crying when the cop took the boy back inside the station. Sobbing, the mother staggered away, a friend helping her walk.

Finally, I have not had 3G on my phone since we arrived in Kashgar. As we were starting out on our journey here, we were told that Khotan had no 3G and that the same was probably true for Kashgar. It definitely is. The government appears to have cut off 3G in an effort to prevent any Uighurs from organizing any sort of mass violence.

It all just makes the city seem like it is occupied by foreign forces.