ERASED: Silencing a kindergarten

Summary

Podcast Summary: "ERASED: Silencing a Kindergarten"

Click Here
Host: Dina Temple-Raston
Author: Recorded Future News
Episode Title: ERASED: Silencing a Kindergarten
Release Date: August 12, 2025

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Introduction

In the compelling episode titled "ERASED: Silencing a Kindergarten," Click Here delves into the harrowing tale of Abdou Wali Ayoob, a passionate advocate for preserving the Uyghur language and culture in northwestern China. Hosted by Dina Temple-Raston, the podcast intricately weaves Abdoulaye's journey from a hopeful kindergarten founder to a symbol of resistance against cultural erasure.

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Abdoulaye's Dream and the Birth of the Kindergarten

[00:02] Dina Temple-Raston introduces listeners to Abdou Wali Ayoob's dream of opening a kindergarten where children could laugh, learn, and speak their native Uyghur language:

"He wanted to open a kindergarten. A small, joyful place where kids could laugh and learn and speak their own language."

Abdoulaye shares his initial steps:
[00:24] Abdou Wali Ayoob: "I started in 2010. First I wrote about it. First I wrote my dream and what it looks like and how we do this, and all of my idea."

Despite facing typical preschool hiccups, such as limited diaper supplies ([01:11] Abdu Wali Ayoob), the kindergarten quickly gained popularity, leading to a three-year waiting list and the establishment of a second school named "The Wisdom of Happiness."

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Navigating a Complex Political Landscape

[01:50] Dina highlights the double-edged meaning of "happiness" in the Uyghur language, which can be interpreted as defiance in China, making Abdoulaye's endeavor more perilous:

"But in China, happiness in the Uyghur language can be interpreted as defiance. And defiance can be dangerous."

As Abdoulaye's awareness of ethnic tensions grows, subtle acts of cultural suppression become evident. Instances like the removal of Uyghur books from libraries ([07:24]) and increased militarization due to mining interests ([05:33]) showcase the escalating control over Uyghur culture and language.

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The Importance of Language and Cultural Identity

In [09:42], Abdoulaye reflects on the personal impact of language loss:

"But when it came to me when my daughter lost her language in six months, and I said, no."

He emphasizes that language is the foundation of cultural identity and solidarity: [10:10] Abdu Wali Ayoob:

"Language is just like small pieces of the sand. And language just collect us as a stone, bind us together."

Abdoulaye realizes that preserving the Uyghur language is crucial not just for individual identity but for the collective resistance against cultural erasure.

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Establishing Nurhan: A Beacon of Resistance

In Kansas, Abdoulaye launches the first Uyghur language kindergarten, Nurhan ([14:30]):

"We call it Nurhan. Nur means light. Khan means king. Light of King."

The school begins with simple yet profound practices, such as starting each day with a Uyghur song ([15:04]):

"The children began each morning with a song in Uyghur. Not a protest song, just a melody in their own tongue."

Abdoulaye innovatively uses familiar tools like dubbing "Dora the Explorer" into Uyghur to make learning engaging ([15:47] - [16:08]).

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State Suppression and Harassment

As Nurhan gains traction, state security becomes increasingly invasive. The first visit from state security officers involves demands for personal information ([16:26]), which Abdoulaye cleverly evades by ensuring his curriculum does not overtly discuss human rights ([16:42]).

The oppressive environment is palpable as Chinese authorities systematically dismantle Uyghur cultural institutions. Abdoulaye's efforts to encourage independent thinking among children clash with the authoritarian emphasis on obedience ([18:20]).

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The Mother Language Movement and Escalation

Nurhan evolves into the Mother Language Movement ([19:17]), symbolizing a quiet revolution through education. While initial expansion faces government pushback, the movement gains viral attention when the second school's permit rejection is publicly shared ([20:27]).

However, this visibility attracts severe repercussions. Police harassment leads to the resignation of staff and eventual closure of the school despite community support ([21:45] - [22:35]).

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Detention and Cultural Erasure

Abdoulaye's resistance culminates in his detention ([24:24]), where he endures brutal interrogations and abuse, reflecting the regime's determination to eliminate dissent ([26:24]). Upon his release, he returns to a drastically changed Uyghur homeland, characterized by pervasive surveillance and stringent controls ([27:05]).

Faced with insurmountable oppression and the arrest of his family members, Abdoulaye flees China, eventually finding refuge in Norway ([30:56]). Despite exile, he continues his fight through storytelling and advocacy, even as his family fears for their safety ([28:49] - [29:10]).

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Aftermath and Ongoing Struggle

The once-thriving Nurhan kindergarten is repurposed into a re-education camp, and Mandarin becomes the mandated language for all kindergartens in China ([30:56]). Abdoulaye’s efforts highlight the insidious nature of cultural erasure, which progresses quietly through the removal of books and suppression of native languages before escalating to overt persecution.

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Conclusion

Abdoulaye Ayoob's story is a poignant reminder of how authoritarian regimes can systematically dismantle cultural identities through seemingly benign means. The episode underscores the fragile nature of cultural preservation and the profound impact of individual resistance.

[28:58] The Chinese Embassy in Washington dismisses Abdoulaye's plight, declaring Xinjiang prosperous and stable, but real-world evidence paints a starkly different picture:

"Stability is not freedom, and silence is not peace."

Looking forward, the series promises to explore further efforts to preserve Uyghur identity beyond the classroom, emphasizing the global implications of such cultural struggles.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([00:24]):
  "I started in 2010. First I wrote about it. First I wrote my dream and what it looks like and how we do this, and all of my idea."

• Dina Temple-Raston ([09:42]):
  "When it came to me when my daughter lost her language in six months, and I said, no."

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([10:10]):
  "Like, the language is just like small pieces of the sand. And language just collect us as a stone, bind us together."

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([15:04]):
  "The children began each morning with a song in Uyghur. Not a protest song, just a melody in their own tongue."

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([19:04]):
  "So we didn't only teach kids language. We teach kids how to be an independent human being. We give them choice."

• Dina Temple-Raston ([22:17]):
  "They had to shut down, though pieces of it were still there. Blankets, toys, stacks of children's clothing in heaps in empty classrooms."

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([26:02]):
  "Yes or no? I said no. And you are training resistance force to incite terrorism. Yes or no? No."

• Abdou Wali Ayoob ([28:58]):
  "And how can I say that, yes, because of my sister, I should stop? What am I doing?"

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Further Exploration

This episode is the first in a four-part series examining how authoritarianism begins with subtle cultural shifts rather than overt force. Click Here encourages listeners to reflect on the importance of cultural preservation and the quiet yet powerful acts of resistance that challenge oppressive regimes.

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Next Episode Preview:
"Next week, we meet someone fighting to keep the Uyghur identity alive. Not for children, but for the whole culture. And he's doing it far from any classroom, in a corner of the Internet."

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For more insights into cybersecurity and intelligence, subscribe to the Cyber Daily by Recorded Future News.

Transcript

[Dina Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click here. Abdu Wali Ayoob had a simple dream. He wanted to open a kindergarten. A small, joyful place where kids could laugh and learn and speak their own language.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I started in 2010. First I wrote about it. First I wrote my dream and what it looks like and how we do this, and all of my idea.

[Dina Temple Raston]

In most parts of the world, that would have been a sweet origin story. But in northwestern China, it was more complicated than that. Something Abdoulaye didn't fully appreciate at the time. Perhaps because he was so busy doing what dreamers do, he scribbled down his vision, found a few backers, gathered a handful of wide eyed toddlers and opened the schoolhouse doors. And at first, the hiccups were the kind you'd expect at a preschool.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

On the first day, the one kid, she wet her pants. I clean it because, like the parents. Yeah, because the parents didn't give me diaper.

[Dina Temple Raston]

After that, he kept a supply of diapers on hand. And before long, word spread about Abdoulay's little school. Parents lined up, literally hoping for a spot.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah, like we have three years of waiting list, just imagine.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So he opened a second school, and this one had a name. The Wisdom of Happiness.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

We call it Wisdom of Happiness because we want kids to be happy.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But in China, happiness in the Uyghur language can be interpreted as defiance. And defiance can be dangerous.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

The wisdom of happiness got you in trouble?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

No, the happiness put me in real trouble.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Because the language those children were speaking was Uyghur. And in Xinjiang, preserving your culture, your language isn't seen as an act of pride. It's seen as an act of protest. I'm Dina Templewraston and this is Click Here. A podcast about all things cyber and intelligence. We tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. And today, the first in a four part series on how authoritarianism begins. Not with tanks in the streets, but with quieter moves, like a book taken from the shelf or a rewritten school lesson. Our story starts in northwestern China, but it doesn't end there. Because when governments from Moscow to Mississippi start demanding sameness, when difference becomes defiance, what's happening in China stops being foreign policy and starts feeling like a warning. Because cultures don't disappear overnight. They're dismantled deliberately, piece by piece. Stay with us.

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[Dina Temple Raston]

You'Re listening to. Click here. I'm Dina Temple Rast. If you were to tell a young Abdoulaye Ayoop that his people were oppressed by the Chinese, he would have been surprised to hear it.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I didn't feel any discrimination when I was really young because there is no Chinese to discriminate us.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Han Chinese make up about 90% of China's population. But in the far northwestern reaches of the country where Abdul Abdiwali was born, most people are weaker. A mix of Turkish and Asian ancestry, a Muslim minority with their own culture and language. In fact, for Abdiweli, Chinese was literally a foreign language.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I don't know Chinese speak Chinese. I assumed all of the people are speaking Uyghur.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

Was Chinese sort of like a foreign language? The same way we might take French or Spanish.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yes, it's a foreign language. Yeah, one of the four got it.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But as he got older, he did start to notice some small things, like no one in his school books looked like him.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And I asked my father why, and he said that don't ask these difficult questions. You will understand when you grow up. So when I was young, I really wanted to grow up because I really wanted to know.

[Dina Temple Raston]

When Abdu Ali Ayyub was a teenager, the landscape around him in northwestern China was beginning to shift. A mining company had discovered valuable minerals in a nearby mountain. And almost overnight, Chinese soldiers arrived to guard what had suddenly become an important site. One afternoon, Abdoulay was riding his bike, just a kid, out with his friends. Chinese soldiers were a fixture in Xinjiang by then, and everyone knew the routine. You pass them, you stop, you nod, you show respect. But that day, his friend looked at him and said, I dare you. Ride right past them. No stopping, just pedal.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

For us. If anyone can, like, pass that line without saying hello, we feel ourselves. We are hero.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

It was a game.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah, it was a game. We are kid. How do we know.

[Dina Temple Raston]

The soldiers weren't playing? They surrounded Abdoulaye and beat him with sticks in the butts of their guns. His father had to pull them off. That night, Abdoulay couldn't even sit down. But it wasn't just the violence. There were smaller humiliations, like they'd invite soldiers to eat fruit from their orchards. But instead of picking it, the soldiers would shoot it off the trees, leaving their orchards littered with bullets. Or they'd shoot people's pets, it seemed, just for fun, just to remind everyone who was in charge. Even the local library wasn't immune. One day, Abdoulaye walked up to the desk and asked for books in Uyghur. And the librarian looked at him and said they were gone.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

She said that I couldn't give you those books because those books are banned at that time. She cried, because, look, very few books and the books are banned.

[Dina Temple Raston]

That's how it starts. Not with explosions, not even with words, but with missing books. A quiet dismantling. Abdoulaye's father had always been loyal to the Communist Party. But after that beating, Abdoulaye started noticing these subtle shifts in his dad.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Before, my father just collect books randomly. Then he started collect. Collecting books deliberately. And before he doesn't read a lot about history. Then he started to read about history and then talk about it.

[Dina Temple Raston]

His dad kept those books in a secret box. His own quiet rebellion against forgetting. And that small act of defiance planted a seed in his son. When it came time for college, Abdiweli chose linguistics. He'd started to understand the power of language, and he wanted to protect it and preserve it. Eventually, that took him to graduate school in Kansas, of all places, it long way from Xinjiang. But the questions that haunted him about identity and belonging, they came with him. And then something happened. Something small and personal, but it hit like a lightning bolt. It happened after he enrolled his daughter in a local Kansas preschool.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

When she came. She speaks Uyghur fluently. She was perfect in her Uyghur. But she lost her language in the US in six months.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Six months. And while this was something he'd been studying, it felt different when he saw it happen to his own family.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

As a linguist, I knew. I knew how language will disappear, like three generations. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Like, this is a theory. I know how language will die. That's my major. But when it came to me when my daughter lost her language in six months, and I said, no.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And that was the moment he realized that language isn't just how we speak. It's how we remember who we are. It's how identity takes root. And once he saw that clearly, he started to see something else. That language doesn't just bind families. It binds culture and movements. It builds solidarity. It makes organizing possible. As Abdi Wali put it, language is what Turns lots of grains of sand into stone.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Like, the language is just like small pieces of the sand. And language just collect us as a stone, bind us together. And if we don't have that language, everyone can stop us, can destroy us, can do anything.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

And do you think that the Chinese.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Government understands this and that's why they're trying to sort of stamp it out?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yes. They understand us like they want us to live as individuals, as 12 million Abduli and 12 million guys, not as a nation, as a people.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And it was there, in Kansas, in the land of yellow school buses and PTA meetings, that Abdiweli had this idea. He knew that language didn't begin in textbooks. It started way before that, on playgrounds and lullabies, in the first words spoken at home.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah, and then I remember that, like, do we have a Uyghur kindergarten? No, there is no Uyghur kindergarten. All of the kindergartens are Chinese kindergarten, like, quote unquote, bilingual kindergarten. But in reality, it's Chinese kindergarten. Because of kindergarten, we are losing this language.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And that's when it hit him. If the loss begins that early, maybe the solution does too. Maybe a preschool could keep the Uyghur language alive. He couldn't wait for someone else to act. He would go home and build something no one else had. A school where Uyghur would be the first language children heard, not the one they forget. A quiet rebellion.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And then I thought that, oh, this is the way. Let me start with this.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It was a simple idea, really. But in China, where culture is managed by the state and identity is treated like a threat, his idea was not so much a school as a quiet rebellion. After the break, Abdiweli and a handful of toddlers walk into what Beijing authorities would later treat like the most dangerous classroom in China. Stay with us.

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[Unnamed Speaker]

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[Lizzie O'Leary]

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[Dina Temple Raston]

When Abdoulaye returned to China, he went to work trying to build his kindergarten. He started gathering support, looking for investors, and his pitch was simple.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Look, this is the way to keep our language alive.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But even that was too bold for some.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And they already afraid of my idea. Like about just promoting Uyghur language.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Oh, really?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah. It was a dangerous idea.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Abdueli wasn't breaking the rules. He was working in the margins, teaching children in Uyghur before the law had a chance to say he couldn't. The Mandarin language was mandatory in primary school, but for kindergartens, the rules weren't so clear.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

There is no clear policy that kindergarten should use Uyghur, should use Chinese, like what language should use in kindergarten.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So he slipped in through that gap. Finally, his brother took a chance on him and invested $80,000. And then, in another stroke of luck, a friend offered him a building for the school. Abdiwale started recruiting just six students to start. And with that, the first Uyghur language kindergarten was born. And they gave it a name that mattered.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

We call it Nurhan. Nur means light. Khan means king. Light of King.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It looked like any kindergarten, with nap time and snack time and then music time. The children began each morning with a song in Uyghur. Not a protest song, just a melody in their own tongue. And for Abdoulaye, that was enough. He'd sit in the front row smiling, because this wasn't just music. This was language, alive and out loud. And he had other ideas, unconventional tools to keep Uyghur alive.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

At that time, I used Dora.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

Dora the Explorer?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Come on.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Dora. All right.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Why I use Dora? Because there is an English part and there's a Spanish part. Right, right, the Spanish part. I use Uyghur.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

Wow, you just dubbed it over.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yeah.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It wasn't flashy, but it worked. After a few short months of this, they got some official visitors. State security officers showed up asking for names and phone numbers and the list of parents who dared to send their kids there.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I expect that happen, but not that quick.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And when they left, what went through your head?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I felt happy that they couldn't really understand my writing.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

What do you mean?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Because I was not only writing about the linguistics or kindergarten or something like that. I was writing about also about human rights. What should we think? Why should we think that way?

[Dina Temple Raston]

He was happy the officers couldn't actually read his curriculum, because he wasn't just teaching Uyghur. Abdoulaye had another goal. To teach kids how to think. Not how to oversight, not how to follow orders, but to ask questions, to wonder and to doubt. Because when he had first started working with the kids, something felt a little off. They didn't act like kids. They followed every instruction immediately, without exception, without complaining. There was no whining, no negotiation, no, oh, please, five more minutes. He'd call out, nap time. And they'd come right in and lie right down. If you've ever met a three year old, you know this isn't how three year olds work. So he pulled one of the parents aside and asked, why? Why are they like this?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I said, why? Your kids just listen to my word really carefully, just not act like a kid. She said it's because of the former kindergarten. If the kids don't listen to them, they just beat them. That's why she's afraid. These kids learned that behavior. It's because of Chinese education.

[Dina Temple Raston]

In Chinese schools, asking questions and standing out isn't encouraged. It's discouraged, actually. Systematically fitting in isn't just a cultural expectation, it's policy. So obedience is woven into every lesson, right alongside math and reading. And that's what made Abdoulaye's next decision feel almost radical, maybe even revolutionary. He gave the kids choices. No more forced naps. No more because I said so. They could choose what to eat, whether to sleep, whether to speak. It was a kindergarten, but it was also something else. A place where children were learning what it meant to be free.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

So we didn't only teach kids language. We teach kids how to be a independent human being. We give them choice.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

So this was a kindergarten, not just.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Of Uyghurs, but of love as well. Yeah, yeah, it worked. The school took off. Six kids became 24, then 100, then several hundred.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I didn't do any advertisement, but people, I don't know, how do they learn? And then people started coming from different cities, come, and they recorded the schools, and they make a video. And like, they spread it on their smartphone.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It spread hand to hand, phone to phone, mother to mother. And the kindergarten stopped being just a kindergarten. It became a movement. They started calling it the Mother Language Movement. A quiet revolution, one classroom at a time. But movements, even quiet ones, don't go unnoticed forever. When they moved to open a second school, the new director did something different. He filed for a permit. The government said no. So he posted the rejection letter online.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

He rejected by local government, and then he posted it online. And then it became a social phenomenon. Like, people all started to talk about it.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And then it went viral. The thing is, Abdiweli never filed for a permit for the first school. He knew they were safer under the radar. But the director of the second school took the opposite approach. Each day he applied again. Each day he was denied, and each rejection posted. What started as digital dissent slipped into the real world. People started to gather at the government offices, demanding answers, wanting accountability. And eventually the government blanked. The school was approved. And while it felt like a win, it wasn't a safe one. Because in going public, the director had crossed a line, one Abdueli had spent years carefully navigating. And the response was swift. Police began harassing the staff. One by one, they quit. Then the director himself stepped down. And finally the landlord pulled the lease.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And then, like the place we rented, she said that I'm not going to rent this place anymore. And we said, like, we have five years contract. Our school paralyzed because we can't get that money back.

[Dina Temple Raston]

They had to shut down, though pieces of it were still there. Blankets, toys, stacks of children's clothing in heaps in empty classrooms. Things that kids had touched and played with but were left behind because their parents were too afraid to retrieve them.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

We had two big rooms full of the students clothes and the students like quilts and the sheets. Two rooms full of those items which students use in daily life. Think about it.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And he did. The movement had grown too quickly, too publicly, and now it felt like it could break or worse, even explode if people heard about the shutdown.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Because look, there are online, 1.5 million people are following us. They will take some action against the government. Bloody clash will happen and then like, people will be arrested and the people who followed the movement will be in trouble in the future. I don't want that happen.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So he created a story, a way to quiet the tension. He rented a new building nearby and told everyone that the school was simply relocating, nothing to worry about, and invited volunteers to help renovate it. Renovate it for students he knew would never be there.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And then like, there are more than 100 people who are helping to renovate the school because it was old school, deserted, and we are just like working on electrics and somebody working on the painting, somebody working on like installing the toys for the kids. I am doing this, but I know I'm fooling the people.

[Dina Temple Raston]

He kept up the act to keep the peace and to buy time to figure out his next move. But that time was cut short. One day during the renovation, a black car pulled up. Security officers stepped out and Abdou Wali knew exactly who they were, but he stayed in character. He started walking to the car and told the volunteers he'd be just a minute.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I have visitors there. And don't stop, keep working. I will talk with them for a while.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And then he shook the men's hands warmly and said loudly so everyone could hear, hi, guys.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Hi. You are the parents will to send your kids to our kindergarten, right?

[Dina Temple Raston]

But once inside the car, they cuffed him, took his phone, and pulled a black hood over his head. He'd been detained before, but this time it felt different.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I thought that this is. This is like the ending. Like, I thought, maybe they will kill me.

[Dina Temple Raston]

This time it felt less like a warning and more like a conclusion. Because when regimes like this feel threatened, they don't tighten the rules, they tighten the news. They don't just detain a man, they redefine him as a threat. Abdoulaye wasn't just being questioned. He was about to be turned into an enemy of the state. The police drove him to his house, and soldiers were already there, lining the street with their weapons drawn. His wife stood frozen in the doorway, his children tucked just behind her. As he watched, the soldiers ransacked the house, pulled open drawers, dumped out closets. They took files and devices, anything that looked like it might matter. And when they were done, they took Abdoulaye into custody. What followed was a year in a succession of different jails and hours and hours of interrogation. Sometimes they locked him in a cage in the center of a cell, and two armed guards would be on either side of him. Three interrogators were in front of him, and they would start to scream. You're trying to create a separate country for Uyghurs.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Yes or no? I said no. And you are training resistance force to incite terrorism. Yes or no? No. And you met Uyghur politicians in Washington, and you promised to work with them. Yes or no? No.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And then they reached for their metal batons, slid them under his arms, and.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

Then they put electric shock and turned on the current.

[Dina Temple Raston]

They did other things, too, but Abdoulaye didn't want to talk about them. Some of it, he said, he'd rather forget. Eventually, he was sentenced. He got 18 months in prison and ended up serving 15. When he walked out, the world he stepped back into wasn't the one he remembered.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

I found, like, the Uyghur homeland changed, like, completely. Just, like, day and night. Like every Uyghur neighborhood. Like, every 500 meters, there's the checkpoints, and every. Every 10 Uyghur family controlled by one guy.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Each block had one guy assigned to watch the families. There were cameras everywhere, making it clear that every word might be recorded. Uyghurs now had to carry a Special ID card. And if the authorities had accused you of wrongdoing, every time the card was scanned, a special sound would ring out.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

When you swipe your ID card to get on the bus and then do the sound.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It was like a scarlet letter, he says, a digital tone that told everyone nearby, this guy has a record. And with that sound came some limits. He couldn't get a job. He couldn't rent a house. He began to fear for his family's life. So when a friend told him about a translator job in Turkey, he didn't hesitate. In 2015, Abdoulaye quietly left the home he'd worked so hard to preserve. And he's been in exile since then, first in Turkey, now in Norway, where he lives with his family. But even from afar, he hasn't stopped trying to help his people. He collects the stories of other Uyghurs who fled. He writes children's books. Stories about memory, about identity, about home. And he keeps telling his own story, even though his family wishes he wouldn't.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

My older brother said that you have to stop and you shouldn't talk because of it will be dangerous for us.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And then he got proof that his brother wasn't just being an alarmist. While visiting a fellow Uyghur exile in Turkey, he got the news his sister had been arrested back in China.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

And I felt really sad. And look, I just walked about 20 kilometers from his home. I walked back to my home. I couldn't even think to take a bus or take a taxi because, yeah, like, it is really hard.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It was heartbreaking. He knew she'd been arrested not for anything she did, but just for being related to him. This was the regime sending a message. You can run, but your family can't hide. Another attempt to silence him.

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

But the problem is not only my sister, there are like, all of my friends being arrested. All of my friends, all of the parents who sent their kids to me, and they being arrested. And how can I say that, yes, because of my sister, I should stop? What am I doing? They have also family, they have also kids, they have also sister and brothers like me. They know it will be dangerous, but they did to keep the language alive. They told me that this is our last defense. And when their life is in danger, how can I keep silence?

[Dina Temple Raston]

The schools he built, gone. The first was turned into a re education camp. The loophole he once stepped through, closed Mandarin is now the required language for all kindergartens in China. And Abdoulaye Ayoob, the man who tried to save a language through children's songs in Dora the Explorer. He can never go back. So here's the thing about Abdiweli's story. It didn't start with handcuffs. It started with silence, with books quietly disappearing from library shelves, with preschool lessons scrubbed of native words. Before the arrests, before the black hoods and interrogations, the cultural erasure was already underway. And we'd like to think that couldn't happen here, that democracies are different, that our systems are stronger. But that's what Abdoulaye's father thought, too. Keep your head down, follow the rules, you'll be left alone. And he was wrong. More than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in camps across far western China, cut off from their families, their culture, their language. We asked the Chinese Embassy in Washington about Abdoulay's story, and they wouldn't address his case directly. But in a written statement, a spokesperson said that people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang fully enjoy economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, and that Xinjiang was a prosperous and stable place. But stability is not freedom, and silence is not peace. Next week, we meet someone fighting to keep the Uyghur identity alive. Not for children, but for the whole culture. And he's doing it far from any classroom, in a corner of the Internet. He carved out for himself a place built to hold on to what the real world is trying to erase.

[Unnamed Interviewer]

And he was forcibly disappeared. And it took me a bit of time to realize, like, what happened to him because my parents were too scared to even tell me.

[Dina Temple Raston]

This is Click here If you're looking.

[Unnamed Speaker]

For a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up today's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Here are some of the top cyber and intelligence stories from the past week. It's Tuesday, August 12th. This makes me feel uneasy. If you're a flow user like me, your information may have been leaked. A jury in California decided that Meta crossed a line, a deeply personal one. The tech giant was found to have violated California state privacy laws by collecting intimate health data from the period tracking app Flo. Flo lets users log their menstrual cycles, pregnancy goals, and even sexual activity. And behind the scenes it turns out Meadow was listening in via some software embedded in the app that allowed the information to get fed into Meta's advertising algorithm. The original class action suit began in 2021, and while Flow settled and updated their privacy protections, Meta fought the judgment and lost. Plaintiffs want billions in damages, and Meta says it's going to appeal. The case leaves another lingering question. Is there anything Big Tech doesn't know about you?

[Abdu Wali Ayoob]

President Donald Trump has his man to.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Lead the office of the National Cyber Director.

[Dina Temple Raston]

After nearly six months of waiting, Sean Karen Cross is in the Senate confirmed his appointment as America's new National Cyber Director. The longtime Republican political operative and former COO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Karen Cross made clear to lawmakers that he isn't a cybersecurity expert. He says his leadership expertise is what makes him the right choice for the job.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And so I look forward to working to do everything I can to make sure that our adversaries, our enemies and criminals who operate in this space know that it is not a cost free endeavor.

[Dina Temple Raston]

His appointment is a departure from the past. His predecessors, Chris Inglis and Harry Coker, both spent decades at the NSA before taking the National Cyber Director job.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Alert Ransomware gangs target Microsoft SharePoint servers protect your network.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Now the warning is urgent, and it comes from both Microsoft and the federal government. A flaw in Microsoft's hybrid Exchange email systems could let hackers jump jump from on prem servers into the cloud. Microsoft quietly patched the bug back in April, but lots of companies apparently haven't installed the patch. There's no evidence yet that the bug's been used, but another Microsoft flaw was recently exploited to crack into hundreds of networks, including some in U.S. agencies. Now the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, or CISA, is is telling federal agencies to patch their systems immediately. And if you're running an old unsupported Exchange server, best to pull the plug. And finally, if we're going to engage.

[Unnamed Speaker]

In the race to the moon and the race to Mars, we have to get our act together.

[Dina Temple Raston]

NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has big plans for the moon. A nuclear reactor up and running by 2030.

[Unnamed Speaker]

There's a certain part of the moon that everyone knows is the best. We have ice there, we have sunlight there. We want to get there first and claim that for America.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But it won't be easy. There are temperature swings of some 600 degrees, no easy access to water, and no spacecraft that can actually haul a reactor into space. NASA, for its part, says it can be done. But experts aren't so sure about the this five year time frame.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Today's episode was written and produced by Megan Dietrich, Erica Gaeda, Zach Hirsch, Dina Temple Raston and the lead producer was me, Sean Powers. It was edited by Karen Duffin, Fact Checked by Darren Ancrum, and a lot of the music you heard in this episode was Uyghur. It was written and performed by Polot Izy Muff and Ben Levingston. We had other music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley and our illustrator is Megan Gough. Our sound designer and mixer for this episode was Dante Hodge. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and PRX in the second installment of our series.

[Dina Temple Raston]

More and more we're seeing that China is still trying to reach outside their borders in order to have that control, so that way they can try for that complete erasure.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's Friday on Click here's Mic Drop. We'll see you then.

If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up today's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.