Nobody knows what happened to a Uyghur student after he returned to China from Egypt and was taken away by police. Not his neighbors, not his classmates, not even his mother. “Is he dead or alive?” the mother asked when an Associated Press reporter visited her home and showed her a photo of her son. Tears ran down her face. Friends of the student believe that he is one of thousands of people who have been taken away without trial into new re-education centers. The disappearances began in the past year. They are part of efforts by Chinese officials to use detentions and electronic surveillance to create a police state over the Xinjiang area and its 10 million Uyghurs.