7.2.1. Xinjiang "re-education" camps (新疆再教育營, 2017-)
The keyword is Rule of law (法治): because of a few terrorists, every single Muslim was fucked even if they did not commit any crime.
Overview projects:
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https://www.talkaboutxinjiang.com/ Talking about Xinjiang 我们一起来谈谈新疆
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https://wokeglobaltimes.com/xinjiang Breaking Down the Xinjiang Crisis on The woke global times
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News:
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2022-04 Ovalbek Turdakun was a prisoner for 10 months in 2018 and tells his experience: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/13/xinjiang-prisoner-hikvision-china/
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2021-06 Inside Xinjiang short video series by The Telegraph. Basically the lady getting followed by police everywhere, and some destroyed mosques.
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2021-04-16 https://twitter.com/adrianzenz/status/1382397174684680197 "Breaking: Xinjiang’s latest 2020 Statistical Yearbook lacks ALL crucial population data"
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2021-04 The wings of songs (歌声的翅膀, 2021) Xinjiang propaganda musical film
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2021-03-28 China Global Television Network (CGTN, 中国环球电视网, CCP media) invents French national "Laurene Beaumond" who refutes the situation in Xinjiang:
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China Global Television Network (CGTN, 中国环球电视网, CCP media) article in French: https://archive.is/USZ45 by "Laurene Beaumond". The article was updated a day later: this time they remembered to say that Laurene Beaumond is a pseudonym. Article URL: https://francais.cgtn.com/n/BfJEA-cA-HAA/DcCEIA/index.html
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original investigation by Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/03/31/quand-la-television-chinoise-cgtn-invente-une-journaliste-francaise_6075155_3210.html
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2021-03-20 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/03/the-nightmare-of-uyghur-families-separated-by-repression/ "The nightmare of Uyghur families separated by repression" on Amnesty International (国际特赦组织)
Although it is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Uyghurs overseas to receive information about the whereabouts of their family members, some parents have received bits and pieces of information in the form of coded words, or photos and videos, from relatives and friends that make them believe their children were taken to state-run “orphan camps” or boarding schools.
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2021-03-01 https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKCN2AT1BA "China counters Uighur criticism with explicit attacks on women witnesses"
Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.
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2020-10-28 Global Times (环球时报, CCP media) https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203861.shtml in response to The Murder of Ssamuel Paty clarifies that the best way to counter terrorism is preventive mass incarceration and brainwashing: "Eradicating extremism is a huge challenge of governance for all countries. China has proactively explored feasible ways in its Xinjiang governance and generated positive outcomes."
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2020-10-17 (paywall) https://www.economist.com/china/2020/10/17/how-xinjiangs-gulag-tears-families-apart "How Xinjiang’s gulag tears families apart". "So many parents have been locked up that officials struggle to cope with the left-behind children"
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2020-09-19 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3101986/china-claims-vocational-training-given-nearly-13-million-people "Chinese authorities "indirectly" confirm the scale of the camps. China claims 1.3 million Xinjiang residents given 'vocational training' each year"
The document: http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1687588/1687588.htm also quoted on People’s Daily (人民日报, CCP media): http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0918/c1001-31865875.html
Official English translation: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2020-09/17/content_76712251.htm
Title: 新疆的劳动就业保障 (Employment and Labor Rights in Xinjiang)
Quote:
全疆年均培训城乡各类劳动者128.8万人次，其中，南疆地区年均培训45.14万人次。参训人员至少掌握1项就业技能，绝大多数取得了职业资格证书、职业技能等级证书或专项职业能力证书，实现稳定就业。
Google translation:
The average annual training for all kinds of workers in urban and rural areas in Xinjiang is 1.288 million, of which 451,400 are trained in southern Xinjiang. Participants have mastered at least one employment skill, and most of them have obtained vocational qualification certificates, vocational skill level certificates or special vocational ability certificates to achieve stable employment.
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2020-08-27 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps "Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps". Good technique.
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2020-06-29 https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c "China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization"
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2021-01-07 https://archive.vn/sVB8X Tweet from the "Chinese Embassy in US" verified account said "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines", which could be interpreted as suggesting that birth control was one of the goals of the Xinjiang oppression. Some coverage: https://qz.com/1954520/china-says-it-saved-uyghur-women-from-being-baby-making-machines/
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/09/china-forced-sterilizations-feminist-rebrand comments that there is precedent to that in Peru’s dictatorship:
In the 1990s about 350,000 people were sterilized in Peru under a program promoted by President Alberto Fujimori, who argued a lower birth rate was the key to eliminating poverty. "Peruvian women should be the owners of their destiny!" Fujimori said in a 1995 speech to congress. He presented his family-planning campaign as a step forward for feminism, and even got funding from the US Agency for International Development, USAid. Many of the women who were sterilized, however, came from poor indigenous backgrounds and were coerced or forced into the procedure.
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2020-06-17 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN23O3EW "Trump signs bill pressuring China over Uighur Muslim crackdown"
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2019-12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkliuqQo-g "A Secret Look Inside a Chinese Labor Program for Uighurs | Visual Investigations" by "The New York Times" published on Dec 30, 2019. Description: "China is relocating Uighurs and other Muslim minorities to urban areas as part of a contentious labor program. The Times obtained rare footage taken inside one."
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2919-12: Muslim German Turkish Arsenal player Mesut Özil criticizes concentration camps on Twitter, and China stops broadcasting arsenal matches
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2019-11: "What happened to me" manga depicting Uighur torture hits 2.5m views
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2019-11 The Xinjiang Papers: leaked cables about Xinjiang internment camps policy, some reported by the New York Times and others by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, soure yet unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_papers
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2020-02-18 https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/20/more-evidence-chinas-horrific-abuses-xinjiang the "Karakax list" leaked spreadsheet contains detailed information on 331 citizens Karakax County in Xinjiang and sheds further insight on why certain people have been persecuted from Human Rights Watch (人权观察)
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html
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2020-02: more leaks containing detailed records of several citizens: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/02/asia/xinjiang-china-karakax-document-intl-hnk/
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2019-07-31 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html "Doubt Greets China’s Claim That Muslims Have Been Released From Camps"
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2019-07-19 https://www.france24.com/en/20190712-37-countries-defend-china-over-xinjiang-un-letter "37 countries defend China over Xinjiang in UN letter"
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2019-07-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48825090 "China Muslims: Xinjiang schools used to separate children from families"
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2019-05-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaJVWOr4ko CNN does a few Xinjiang interviews and sends reporter to visit some of the concentration camps
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2019-02-24 https://fortune.com/2019/02/21/thermo-fisher-xinjiang-china-uighurs/
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2019-02-17 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2186547/china-data-leak-exposes-vast-hi-tech-surveillance-operation "China data leak exposes vast hi-tech surveillance operation in Xinjiang", leak by SenseNets Technology.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html
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2019-03 https://shahit.biz/eng/ database of Xinjiang victims, with precise names, location, date of birth and ID card number of victims and testimonies
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2018-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=dsd1NkCKaNg In full: 'I begged them to kill me' - ex-Xinjiang detainee Mihrigul Tursun gives testimony in the US. Observers however rightly brought up the Nayirah testimony.
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2018-11 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45812419 Xinjiang legalizes 're-education' camps
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2018-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eak3WRtcdko Sairagul Sawytbai testifies to the existence of Chinese concentration camps in Xinjiang
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2018-05 generic report https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/
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2018-05 mapping internment camps with satellite imaging:
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https://www.albawaba.com/news/mapping-china’s-internment-camps-its-ethnic-minorities-1136100
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https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/list-of-re-education-camps-in-xinjiang-新疆再教育集中营列表-99720372419c List of Re-education Camps in Xinjiang 新疆再教育集中营列表 Shawn Zhang https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/8mbhad/satellite_imagery_of_xinjiang_reeducation_camps/
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2018-05 Omir Bekali’s account of Xinjiang education camps:
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2017-04 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/world/asia/china-xinjiang-ban-muslim-names-muhammad-jihad.html "China Bans 'Muhammad' and 'Jihad' as Baby Names in Heavily Muslim Region".
Note that Muhammad is an incredibly popular name in Islamic countries, and thought to be the most popular name in the world with 150m people sharing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)#Transliterations
It is so prevalent, that it is often shortened to just "Md." and people are just called by their second name to reduce ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_name#Ism
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2017-04 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html
Figure 97. Image of prisoners wearing blue sitting down in Kaifaqu internment camp (TODO Chinese) in Lop county (洛浦县) on April 2017. The image shows some prisoners identified to indicate that they are not criminals but rather detained purely for political reasons, their name from left to right: Mamtimin, Aziz Haji Shangtang, Eli Ahun Qarim, and Abdulla Haret. A fifth and sixth ones were identified in another report. This image has become emblematic of the prison camps. Wikipedia cites as a source: http://web.archive.org/web/20180821032854/https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1564669932542581 which was down as of 2021-06. But that image has a semi cropped watermark, so it simply cannot be the original image. An image with the same watermark uncropped can be seen at: https://mvslim.com/re-education-camps-for-muslims-chinas-muslim-community-the-uyghurs-are-facing-a-new-level-of-oppression/ it reads "[WeChat (微信, Weixin) logo]新疆司法行政" (Xinjiang judicial administration) Freewechat from GreatFire (自由微博) has a dump of some of their WeChat posts: https://freewechat.com/profile/MzIwODIyNTU1NA== but we could not find the one containing that image specifically, although the watermark is the same. Source.
Figure 98. Workers walking next to a prison-like security wall with concertina wire and barbed wire in the Dabancheng (达坂城区) re-education camp circa 2019. Source.
Figure 99. Security towers and inmate buildings of the Artux city (阿图什市) re-education camp circa 2018-12-03. Source.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI8bJO-to8I In Search of Concentration Camps in XinJiang - A Documentary on Urban/Rural China by Guanguan (2021) This was later featured in Western media, e.g. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10225133/Prisons-centre-Beijings-clampdown-Muslim-minorities-Xinjiang-caught-video.html, which mentions without evidence that he is a Chinese student in Taiwan. Radio Free Asia (RFA, 自由亚洲电台, USA government media) coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/guanguan-video-11182021184058.html.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUmom_z6nQ4 (GitHub reupload) TikTok (Douyin, 抖音) video of a few dozen Uyghur chilren being marched on the street with large bags, presumably during a displacement. The adults organizing it are a laugh, presumably at something cute one of the children did. Video markings: "@MaD DaN", location: "伯干村" (Bogancun, a town in Xinjiang according to Google Maps), rolling banner TODO confirm, understand: "诗书达理之山人刨作原声". TODO identify Chinese music being sang on background, it is not clear if it is an edit or from the footage. The echo of the speaker on the background buildings is eery. UNCONFIRMED. Source.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcLbAveuemI Here is a trick to getting longer lashes by feroza.x (2019). In this TikTok (Douyin, 抖音) video, American then 17-year old Feroza Aziz, alias feroza.x, starts what looks likea regular makeup video, but which soon turns out to be a bait-and-switch video drawing attention to the Xinjiang "re-education" camps (新疆再教育營, 2017-). This is somewhat similar to a Screen name keyword attack (网名审查关键字攻击) with its Dual-use technology (军民两用技术) approach.
On 2019-09-22 Drone footage of Xinjiang prisoner transfer surfaced. TODO confirm the location and that these are political prisoners rather than "normal criminals".
News coverage
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2019-09-23 https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/sep/23/footage-blindfolded-shackled-prisoners-china-video Footage shows hundreds of blindfolded and shackled prisoners in China
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Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/d78aog/chilling_video_of_chinese_police_transferring/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYoeJ5U7cQ 2019 Drone footage of Xinjiang prisoner transfer. The prisoners are blindfolded and shackled. On the HUD of the footage we can see "dji", which was a popular drone manufacturer of the period.
Figure 100. Video still of 2019-09-23 drone footage of blindfolded Xinjiang prisoners being marched taken at time 00:30. Source.
The keyword is Rule of law (法治): because of a few terrorists, every single Muslim was fucked even if they did not commit any crime.
Overview projects:
-
https://www.talkaboutxinjiang.com/ Talking about Xinjiang 我们一起来谈谈新疆
-
https://wokeglobaltimes.com/xinjiang Breaking Down the Xinjiang Crisis on The woke global times
News:
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2022-04 Ovalbek Turdakun was a prisoner for 10 months in 2018 and tells his experience: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/13/xinjiang-prisoner-hikvision-china/
-
2021-06 Inside Xinjiang short video series by The Telegraph. Basically the lady getting followed by police everywhere, and some destroyed mosques.
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2021-04-16 https://twitter.com/adrianzenz/status/1382397174684680197 "Breaking: Xinjiang’s latest 2020 Statistical Yearbook lacks ALL crucial population data"
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2021-04 The wings of songs (歌声的翅膀, 2021) Xinjiang propaganda musical film
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2021-03-28 China Global Television Network (CGTN, 中国环球电视网, CCP media) invents French national "Laurene Beaumond" who refutes the situation in Xinjiang:
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China Global Television Network (CGTN, 中国环球电视网, CCP media) article in French: https://archive.is/USZ45 by "Laurene Beaumond". The article was updated a day later: this time they remembered to say that Laurene Beaumond is a pseudonym. Article URL: https://francais.cgtn.com/n/BfJEA-cA-HAA/DcCEIA/index.html
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original investigation by Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/03/31/quand-la-television-chinoise-cgtn-invente-une-journaliste-francaise_6075155_3210.html
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2021-03-20 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/03/the-nightmare-of-uyghur-families-separated-by-repression/ "The nightmare of Uyghur families separated by repression" on Amnesty International (国际特赦组织)
Although it is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Uyghurs overseas to receive information about the whereabouts of their family members, some parents have received bits and pieces of information in the form of coded words, or photos and videos, from relatives and friends that make them believe their children were taken to state-run “orphan camps” or boarding schools.
-
2021-03-01 https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKCN2AT1BA "China counters Uighur criticism with explicit attacks on women witnesses"
Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.
-
2020-10-28 Global Times (环球时报, CCP media) https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203861.shtml in response to The Murder of Ssamuel Paty clarifies that the best way to counter terrorism is preventive mass incarceration and brainwashing: "Eradicating extremism is a huge challenge of governance for all countries. China has proactively explored feasible ways in its Xinjiang governance and generated positive outcomes."
-
2020-10-17 (paywall) https://www.economist.com/china/2020/10/17/how-xinjiangs-gulag-tears-families-apart "How Xinjiang’s gulag tears families apart". "So many parents have been locked up that officials struggle to cope with the left-behind children"
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2020-09-19 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3101986/china-claims-vocational-training-given-nearly-13-million-people "Chinese authorities "indirectly" confirm the scale of the camps. China claims 1.3 million Xinjiang residents given 'vocational training' each year"
The document: http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1687588/1687588.htm also quoted on People’s Daily (人民日报, CCP media): http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0918/c1001-31865875.html
Official English translation: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2020-09/17/content_76712251.htm
Title: 新疆的劳动就业保障 (Employment and Labor Rights in Xinjiang)
Quote:
全疆年均培训城乡各类劳动者128.8万人次，其中，南疆地区年均培训45.14万人次。参训人员至少掌握1项就业技能，绝大多数取得了职业资格证书、职业技能等级证书或专项职业能力证书，实现稳定就业。
Google translation:
The average annual training for all kinds of workers in urban and rural areas in Xinjiang is 1.288 million, of which 451,400 are trained in southern Xinjiang. Participants have mastered at least one employment skill, and most of them have obtained vocational qualification certificates, vocational skill level certificates or special vocational ability certificates to achieve stable employment.
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2020-08-27 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps "Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps". Good technique.
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2020-06-29 https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c "China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization"
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2021-01-07 https://archive.vn/sVB8X Tweet from the "Chinese Embassy in US" verified account said "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines", which could be interpreted as suggesting that birth control was one of the goals of the Xinjiang oppression. Some coverage: https://qz.com/1954520/china-says-it-saved-uyghur-women-from-being-baby-making-machines/
-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/09/china-forced-sterilizations-feminist-rebrand comments that there is precedent to that in Peru’s dictatorship:
In the 1990s about 350,000 people were sterilized in Peru under a program promoted by President Alberto Fujimori, who argued a lower birth rate was the key to eliminating poverty. "Peruvian women should be the owners of their destiny!" Fujimori said in a 1995 speech to congress. He presented his family-planning campaign as a step forward for feminism, and even got funding from the US Agency for International Development, USAid. Many of the women who were sterilized, however, came from poor indigenous backgrounds and were coerced or forced into the procedure.
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2020-06-17 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN23O3EW "Trump signs bill pressuring China over Uighur Muslim crackdown"
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2019-12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkliuqQo-g "A Secret Look Inside a Chinese Labor Program for Uighurs | Visual Investigations" by "The New York Times" published on Dec 30, 2019. Description: "China is relocating Uighurs and other Muslim minorities to urban areas as part of a contentious labor program. The Times obtained rare footage taken inside one."
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2919-12: Muslim German Turkish Arsenal player Mesut Özil criticizes concentration camps on Twitter, and China stops broadcasting arsenal matches
-
2019-11: "What happened to me" manga depicting Uighur torture hits 2.5m views
-
2019-11 The Xinjiang Papers: leaked cables about Xinjiang internment camps policy, some reported by the New York Times and others by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, soure yet unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_papers
-
2020-02-18 https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/20/more-evidence-chinas-horrific-abuses-xinjiang the "Karakax list" leaked spreadsheet contains detailed information on 331 citizens Karakax County in Xinjiang and sheds further insight on why certain people have been persecuted from Human Rights Watch (人权观察)
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html
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2020-02: more leaks containing detailed records of several citizens: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/02/asia/xinjiang-china-karakax-document-intl-hnk/
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2019-07-31 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html "Doubt Greets China’s Claim That Muslims Have Been Released From Camps"
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2019-07-19 https://www.france24.com/en/20190712-37-countries-defend-china-over-xinjiang-un-letter "37 countries defend China over Xinjiang in UN letter"
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2019-07-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48825090 "China Muslims: Xinjiang schools used to separate children from families"
-
2019-05-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaJVWOr4ko CNN does a few Xinjiang interviews and sends reporter to visit some of the concentration camps
-
2019-02-24 https://fortune.com/2019/02/21/thermo-fisher-xinjiang-china-uighurs/
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2019-02-17 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2186547/china-data-leak-exposes-vast-hi-tech-surveillance-operation "China data leak exposes vast hi-tech surveillance operation in Xinjiang", leak by SenseNets Technology.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html
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2019-03 https://shahit.biz/eng/ database of Xinjiang victims, with precise names, location, date of birth and ID card number of victims and testimonies
-
2018-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=dsd1NkCKaNg In full: 'I begged them to kill me' - ex-Xinjiang detainee Mihrigul Tursun gives testimony in the US. Observers however rightly brought up the Nayirah testimony.
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2018-11 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45812419 Xinjiang legalizes 're-education' camps
-
2018-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eak3WRtcdko Sairagul Sawytbai testifies to the existence of Chinese concentration camps in Xinjiang
-
2018-05 generic report https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/
-
2018-05 mapping internment camps with satellite imaging:
-
https://www.albawaba.com/news/mapping-china’s-internment-camps-its-ethnic-minorities-1136100
-
https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/list-of-re-education-camps-in-xinjiang-新疆再教育集中营列表-99720372419c List of Re-education Camps in Xinjiang 新疆再教育集中营列表 Shawn Zhang https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/8mbhad/satellite_imagery_of_xinjiang_reeducation_camps/
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2018-05 Omir Bekali’s account of Xinjiang education camps:
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2017-04 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/world/asia/china-xinjiang-ban-muslim-names-muhammad-jihad.html "China Bans 'Muhammad' and 'Jihad' as Baby Names in Heavily Muslim Region".
Note that Muhammad is an incredibly popular name in Islamic countries, and thought to be the most popular name in the world with 150m people sharing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)#Transliterations
It is so prevalent, that it is often shortened to just "Md." and people are just called by their second name to reduce ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_name#Ism
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2017-04 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html
Figure 97. Image of prisoners wearing blue sitting down in Kaifaqu internment camp (TODO Chinese) in Lop county (洛浦县) on April 2017. The image shows some prisoners identified to indicate that they are not criminals but rather detained purely for political reasons, their name from left to right: Mamtimin, Aziz Haji Shangtang, Eli Ahun Qarim, and Abdulla Haret. A fifth and sixth ones were identified in another report. This image has become emblematic of the prison camps. Wikipedia cites as a source: http://web.archive.org/web/20180821032854/https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1564669932542581 which was down as of 2021-06. But that image has a semi cropped watermark, so it simply cannot be the original image. An image with the same watermark uncropped can be seen at: https://mvslim.com/re-education-camps-for-muslims-chinas-muslim-community-the-uyghurs-are-facing-a-new-level-of-oppression/ it reads "[WeChat (微信, Weixin) logo]新疆司法行政" (Xinjiang judicial administration) Freewechat from GreatFire (自由微博) has a dump of some of their WeChat posts: https://freewechat.com/profile/MzIwODIyNTU1NA== but we could not find the one containing that image specifically, although the watermark is the same. Source.
On 2019-09-22 Drone footage of Xinjiang prisoner transfer surfaced. TODO confirm the location and that these are political prisoners rather than "normal criminals".
News coverage
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2019-09-23 https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/sep/23/footage-blindfolded-shackled-prisoners-china-video Footage shows hundreds of blindfolded and shackled prisoners in China
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Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/d78aog/chilling_video_of_chinese_police_transferring/