China presented the two top ethnic Uyghur officials in the XUAR at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday to deliver a surprising claim that the vast majority of Uyghurs had completed training in re-education camps and rejoined their families
Ebeydulla is one of many Uyghur professionals and intellectuals who have been identified as detainees in XUAR internment camps, and who defy claims by authorities that those held in the facilities are in need of “vocational training.”
Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said that some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the camps—which would equate to 10 to 11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the XUAR
After a visit with Uyghur exiles in Istanbul, Turkey who had fled persecution in the XUAR, Yeung learned that many had left behind children who they believed were being held in facilities akin to orphanages throughout the region that are designed to look like regular schools, but where minders systematically assimilate Uyghur youth into Han Chinese culture
Nearly two dozen countries at the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in Geneva have urged China to end mass arbitrary detentions, as well as widespread surveillance and restrictions, on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
Some 200 people died and 1,700 were injured in the three-day rampage of violence that began on July 5, 2009 in Urumqi between ethnic minority Uyghurs and Han Chinese, according to China’s official figures, although Uyghur rights groups say the numbers are much higher
In January, China’s foreign ministry welcomed U.N. officials to visit the region, provided they “abide by Chinese law and comply with relevant procedures,” and “avoid interfering in domestic matters or undermining [China’s] sovereignty”
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
Rights groups say detainees in the camps face death, torture and various abuses such as being forced to renounce Islam and consume pork and alcohol. The groups repeatedly criticize the international community for not doing enough to hold Chinese authorities accountable.
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