An independent U.S. watchdog group labeled sixteen nations Monday as “countries of particular concern” for engaging in “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations” of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom cited China
The greatest concentration of Muslims in China is in Xinjiang province, where 10 million Uighurs live. Repressed by the Chinese government, more than 1 million Uighurs are estimated to be held in detention camps, a United Nations report says. Beijing calls these camps “re-education camps” and denies any human rights are being violated
At least one contributor, from the XUAR, was arrested at the end of September 2018 after filming one of the camps and producing an investigative report into the camp network. His whereabouts are unknown
Uighurs are a largely Muslim ethnic minority group based mainly in China’s westernmost Xinjiang region. They tend to have more in common culturally and ethnically with people across Central Asian nations than they do with Han Chinese. Their language is related to Turkish and also shares similarities with Uzbek, Mongolian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz. Islam is …