“Home” means different things to young Uyghurs – some of whom may have not even visited their ancestral homeland in China’s far western Xinjiang region.
A Uyghur design director who has worked for a Chinese locomotive manufacturer in Turkey for more than a decade was arrested by Chinese authorities in March when he returned to Xinjiang for a family visit, company employees said.
Mass incarcerations in the XUAR, as well as other policies seen to violate the rights of Uyghurs and other Muslims, have led to increasing calls by the international community to hold Beijing accountable for its actions in the region
Authorities are believed to have held up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas in a vast network of internment camps in the XUAR since April 2017, although Beijing describes them as “boarding schools” that provide vocational training and protect the country from terrorism
Though Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, China has tried to change the discussion, describing the facilities as “boarding schools” that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization and help protect the country from terrorism
The website, which routinely publishes photos and video documenting human rights violations submitted by citizen journalists from inside China, cited a second source as saying that in the fall of 2018, a street leading to Wuwei Prison was blocked off for two days, and that all vehicles and pedestrians were prohibited from passing through
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