Payziwat

IN THE WINTER OF 1997, an earthquake in Payziwat near Kashgar changed the course of my work. It was one of the worse natural disasters that had occurred in the Uyghur nation in recent memory. More than one-hundred villages and one-thousand homes were leveled to the ground. As usual, nobody but the highest Party officials had information on the number of casualties buried beneath the ruble. ... We had to wait sixteen days before the government let us enter Payziwat. While we waited, they were busy burying corpses and clearing the worst damage in the earthquake-stricken region. We drove into the area with a convoy of twenty trucks. Our plan was to distribute the donations at government locations. When town leaders led local resident to us, as soon as the people were offered this aid they looked with great doubt toward their leaders. They had to be reassured before they would help themselves.

2009, Rebiya Kadeer, Alexandra Cavelius, Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China, Kales Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 276

The New York Times described restrictions publicized by local authorities in Payziwat^([sic – meaning Shayar]) County that “include barring teachers and students from observing Ramadan, prohibiting retired government officials from entering mosques and requiring men to shave off beards and women to doff veils. Mosques cannot let people from outside of town stay overnight and restaurants must maintain normal hours of business.”

2013, Sacred Right Defiled: China's Iron-Fisted Repression Of Uyghur Religious Freedom, Washington, D.C.: Uyghur Human Rights Project, page 61