Uyghurs Muslims
of Xinjian, China
The Uyghurs are an ethnoreligious group that lives in the westernmost province of China. They are currently facing genocide in their home. Please watch the following videos, they tell the story much better than I ever could.
Xinjian, China
"China’s Uighur minority live a dystopian nightmare of constant surveillance and brutal policing. At least one million of them are believed to be living in what the U.N. described as a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy,” while many Uighur children are taken to state-run orphanages where they're indoctrinated into Chinese customs."
"The BBC has been given rare access to the vast system of highly secure facilities thought to be holding more than a million Muslims in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
Authorities there insist they are just training schools. But the BBC’s visit uncovers important evidence about the nature of the system and the conditions for the people inside it."
It is one of the biggest human rights stories on the planet: China - specifically the province of Xinjiang - and the estimated one million Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities currently held in massive internment camps there.
Previously, most of what the world knew about Xinjiang came through satellite imagery, carefully controlled official tours of the camps plus the accounts of some of those imprisoned there.
Now, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the New York Times say they have troves of classified documents to work with - reportedly leaked from within China's Communist Party.
Both organisations say the documents prove the camps are not about "re-educating extremists" or fighting violence, as Beijing would have the world believe - but to indiscriminately imprison and brainwash Xinjiang's Muslim population.
In response, China has borrowed a phrase or two from offshore, calling the leaks "fabrications and fake news". But as new evidence emerges, Beijing's narrative is proving increasingly difficult to defend.
The leaks represent a quantum leap in our understanding of what is unfolding in Xinjiang - human rights violations on an historic scale.
"What's most important about these documents is that they are evidence," says Sophie Richardson, China director, Human Rights Watch. "You know this shows a clear intent by the second most powerful government in the world to politically re-engineer people's thinking. What they should be taught, what they're not allowed to say, what they can't think any more. You know it's one thing to read patently dishonest propaganda that talks about religious freedom being guaranteed to everyone in Xinjiang. When you sit down and read a 'how-to' manual by a government that's a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it's terrifying."
Xinjiang leaks: Reporting on China's detention camps | The Listening Post (Lead)
China has turned the northwestern region of Xinjiang into a vast experiment in domestic surveillance. WSJ investigated what life is like in a place where one's every move can be monitored with cutting-edge technology.
Life Inside China's Total Surveillance State
China is marrying Big Brother to Big Data. Every citizen will be watched and their behaviour scored in the most ambitious and sophisticated system of social control in history. Matthew Carney reports.
Exposing China's Digital Dystopian Dictatorship | Foreign Correspondent