China expands brutal crackdown on Uighur Muslims - New report suggest nearly 400 internment camps built
In western China’s Xinjiang region, an estimated 2 million Uighurs have been detained in ‘re-education’ camps, where they are banned from practising their religion, forced to swear loyalty to President Xi Jinping, and are subject to relentless surveillance.
Now, we’ve just got the best guess at exactly how many internment camps China has built: 380. Here’s what we know and how.
Who are the Uighurs and why is China detaining them?
China began detaining large numbers of Uighurs - a Muslim ethnic minority - in 2017, arguing they needed to be rounded up to combat “terrorism” after a knife attack in the country’s west.
It’s the way the Chinese Communist Party deals with subversion - using surveillance and state force to clamp down on threats to its rule.
The Chinese Government says they’ve stopped detaining Uighurs, but this new data from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute suggests otherwise.
The new data
The Australian thinktank was able to identify 280 detention centres using satellite imagery and survivor accounts - more than 100 more than other investigations have previously been able to uncover.
“The evidence in this database shows that despite Chinese officials’ claims about detainees graduating from the camps, significant investment in the construction of new detention facilities has continued throughout 2019 and 2020,” ASPI researcher Nathan Ruser said.
The largest camp identified by ASPI has more than 100 buildings. It was expanded as recently as 2019.
In another camp, opened as recently as January this year, there are 13 five-storey buildings surrounded by 14-metre-high walls.
What happens in the re-education camps?
Foreign media are usually barred from getting anywhere near the re-education camps, but survivor accounts and leaked footage help paint a picture of what’s happening inside.
According to one account, Uighurs stay in rooms shared with over a dozen others, which is searched every morning.
After being forced to study communist propaganda, detained Uighurs are required to sing communist songs and chant “Long live Xi Jinping”. There are also hours-long Chinese language lessons.
Some say they were tortured while in detention. There have also been reports of some deaths inside the camps.
Outside the camps, in the greater Xinjiang region where many Uighurs live, police use facial recognition and ID cards to track Uighur residents’ movements outside the camps, at times confiscating phones and passports.
Long beards and veils, as well as some Muslim baby names, are banned.
Allegations of forced labour
Since the beginning of the year, think tanks and media outlets have reported a new development in China’s treatment of Uighurs: forced labour.
One report - also from ASPI - estimated more than 80,000 Uighurs had been transferred straight out of Xinjiang re-education camps into factories, where they worked long hours, were under constant surveillance and lived in segregated dormitories.
Some of those factories supply massive global brands such as Apple, Nike, Sony, Samsung and BMW.