New Details Emerge from Xinjiang Camps Amid Government Efforts to Discredit Victims
Posted by Joseph Brouwer | Mar 2, 2021
As a campaign of mass internment of Uyghurs in northwest China seemingly begins to transition into a new stage involving forced labor and population transfers, details of the detainees’ experiences continue to emerge. In early February, a BBC investigation uncovered evidence of systematic rape in the camps, “the-situation-that-must-not-be-mentioned” in the words of Weibo users trying to avoid censors’ gazes. At The New Yorker, a visual essay written by Ben Mauk, with artwork by Matt Huynh,
Sholpan Amirken, a hairdresser from northern Xinjiang who married into a prominent religious family, told me that after several of her husband’s relatives were detained in 2017, a male Han cadre came to stay at her house. He advised Amirken and her husband, both of whom are Kazakh, to dispose of books written in Arabic, so she burned them. He also ordered her to
Leaked Chinese report suggests it is forcing Uighurs to take jobs thousands of miles away to change the demographics of their homeland yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Murad Sezer/Reuters
The report, meant for Chinese officials, said transfers meld and assimilate Uighur minorities.
Beijing considers Uighurs a terror risk and has worked to erase their culture.
A leaked report for Chinese officials suggests Beijing is offering Uighurs jobs thousands of miles from their homeland, and pressuring them to accept, in an attempt to erode their personal and regional identity.
Since 2016, China has detained some one million Uighurs in their homeland of Xinjiang in hundreds of prison camps across the region. China claims the Uighurs are a terror threat, and is accused of brainwashing Uighurs and trying to slash birthrates, prompting the US and Canada to accuse Beijing of genocide.