BBC recently leaked data and a long report with regard to harsh conditions of China’s highly secretive re-education/ detention camps in Xinjiang region. Sources mentioned Chinese government ambiguously detained Uyghur, a Turkish speaking ethnic and other ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks minority groups of Xinjiang in those camps in the name of culturally integrated them into China. However, the recent reveal of BBC showed a completely different picture.
Mass Imprisonment of Uyghurs
Hacked from police computer servers in the region, thousands of photographs of weeping detainees, spreadsheets and classified documents had been found. The collection stated mass imprisonment of Uyghurs as well as a shoot-to-kill policy for those who try to escape camps. Between 2017 and 2018, more than 20,000 Uyghurs from county, “Shufu” were imprisoned in camps. The youngest detainee was 15-year-old Rahile Omer, while the oldest was Anihan Hamil who was 73 years old.
Illogical Detention Charges
Charges for their detention were quite illogical such as growing beard, failing to recharge phones, travelling to a Muslim-majority country, non-drinker or non-smoker under influence of Islam, listening to banned lectures, picking quarrels, reading Islamic scriptures and going to mosques, giving birth to more than three children and exchanging texts of Quranic verses. According to various human rights groups, their only crime is practice of Islamic faith. Xinjiang, located in north-west of China shares borders with countries like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. On account of these, the region has Muslim population.
Chinese Official Viewed Uyghurs as Terrorist
After two terrorist attacks by Islamic extremist groups from Xinjiang in 2014, the Chinese government started viewing Uyghurs as holding separatist and extremist religious ideology and they launched crackdown of Uyghurs. In 2017, Chinese government started these camps calling as vocational training centres. Report suggested detainees had to prove their loyalty to Chinese Communist Party, giving up Islam religion along with learning Mandarin. They had to suffer various atrocities like sleep deprivation, torture, violence withing camps.
Human Rights Chief’s Official visit to China
Chinese government repeatedly refutes these allegations and continue to build these training centers. Nevertheless, an anonymous hacker downloaded documents from Chinese police servers and decrypted them. He handed this information to Dr. Adrian Zenz, A US based academician from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Dr. Adrian Zenz later shared these documents and photographs with pool of journalists including BBC. The BBC after month long endeavors of investigating and authenticating the data, published the full report on May 24. Following international pressure, Human Rights Chief, Michelle Bachelet, arrived in China for a three days visit.