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Real or fake? Chinese police in Xinjiang mocked for cinematic recruitment posters
PUBLISHED : Friday, 16 January, 2015, 10:26am
UPDATED : Friday, 16 January, 2015, 10:54am
Staff Reporters
The Fuyan police department insisted the officers were pictured in their real training sites. Photo: Weibo
Police at a county in China’s restive Xinjiang region became the target of mock and ridicule after releasing recruitment posters that looked like they came from the set of a sci-fi or action film.
The police squads are seen in various uniforms showing off their weaponry and tactical formations against unlikely backdrops like fiery skies and spaceship-like objects emitting beams of light.
“Highly capable”, says one poster that lists the force’s top skills and pictures an officer pointing a gun. “And absolute sincerity.”
“We are always ready to guarantee security and peace,” reads another.
The Fuyun county police’s official Weibo page, however, insisted: “This is not a show, not staged. It’s just a real scene from their training.”
If the posters are to be believed, then the Fuyun policemen are used to all kinds of terrain and conditions, from barren deserts to snow-capped mountain peaks, as well as floating in zero gravity somewhere between the earth and the Milky Way.
The statement added that officers trained at the Altai Mountains, near the border with Russia and Mongolia.
“These movie-like posters [will] soon become a hit online,” said the official People’s Daily newspaper’s website, perhaps unprepared for the criticism that would ensue.
On the official account of the Ministry of Public Security’s anti-crime unit, hundreds of commenters criticised police officials for their insistence that the shots in the posters were not staged.
Others wondered if it was a waste of the police budget to let even small counties produce adverts and posters glamourising the profession.
“Will the neighbourhood beat cops be the next [to produce posters]? How long does this have to go on?” asked one Chinese internet user.
Some netizens also said that if the men appearing in the posters were real policemen or Swat team members, then they should not have shown their faces so as not to be recognised by potential criminals.
The Chinese government named Xinjiang, in the far west, as the "main battleground" in its anti-terror campaign, launched last year after a series of bombings and knife attacks in the region, as well as Yunnan province and a suicide attack in the heart of China's capital, Beijing.
Xinjiang is home to a large population of Uygurs, a Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim ethnic minority. Beijing has blamed Uygur militants of fighting to create an independent state there called East Turkestan, while human rights advocates and exiled Uygurs blame the violence on Beijing's iron-fisted rule.
Hundreds of terror suspects in Xinjiang have been executed or jailed after speedy trials as part of the crackdown.
But aside from beefing up security and clamping down on "terror" activities, President Xi Jinping has also emphasised promoting national unity in Xinjiang through education and livelihood programmes.
