Scientists estimate that more than a million Uighurs have been held in re-education camps for periods ranging from weeks to years. The detainees attended daily political indoctrination programs, with reports of torture by guards. Under international pressure, Beijing said in 2019 that all trainees at “vocational education and training centers” in Xinjiang had graduated, using the term the government eventually settled on for the camps after initially denying their existence. However, China has continued to build huge detention centers in the region since then. Several former detainees have been transferred to work in newly constructed factories, raising concerns about forced labor that has led to US sanctions. So, what is the history of the Uyghurs? The Uyghurs are a native of Turkey in northwest China’s Xinjiang region. Many Uyghurs are Muslims, and their religious faith has put them at odds with the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party. About 12 million Uighurs live in Xinjiang, with smaller groups in Kazakhstan, Turkey and other countries. He ruled East Turkestan (1933-1934 and 1944-1949) before the region came under the Communist rule of Mao Zedong in 1949, along with the rest of China. A number of Uyghurs still hope for political independence one day, a position that has been severely suppressed by Beijing, what is China meat with them? China cites sporadic terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and the Uyghur independence movement as justification for the repression. Uyghur activists say years of state-sponsored oppression and discrimination against the Uyghurs have ignited popular anger against the government, as ethnic tensions between the Uyghurs and the majority Han in China have long since escalated, sometimes erupting into violence. In 2009, the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, was rioted, killing 197 people and injuring many, and Beijing’s focus on stability in Xinjiang is due to the region’s geopolitical and economic importance. Xinjiang is rich in oil and produces the vast majority of cotton in China. The region has land borders with Afghanistan, Russia, Pakistan, India, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and China has always given priority to the need for stability on its sometimes fractured outskirts, so what steps has China taken against them? Or even years. Former detainees spoke of daily lessons in patriotism and the Chinese language, and some said they were tortured by guards. In some centers, they also learned vocational skills such as textile making. Several former detainees say they were forced to work in a factory as a condition of their release, and during the same period, the Xinjiang government launched a high-tech surveillance system across the region to track the movements of Uyghurs through police checkpoints, and with facial recognition. Surveillance cameras and home visits by officials, are these really concentration camps? Definitions of the emotionally charged term vary, but the Xinjiang camps have key similarities to the early Nazi concentration camps. Likewise, they targeted an ethnic minority and political opponents, and it was explicitly expected that the detainees would contribute to work in the factories. In both cases, the arrests took place without formal charges or trials, however, the Xinjiang camps were not death camps – the most notorious type of Nazi concentration camp, where detainees were massacred with gas or other methods. While some of the detainees in Xinjiang camps have died, the official goal was to release them back into society after ideological training. One definition of “concentration camp” from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is “a camp in which people are detained or imprisoned, usually harsh conditions and without regard to the legal standards of detention and imprisonment acceptable in a constitutional democracy.” The Chinese government objects to the facilities’ characterization as concentration camps, saying they are vocational training centers aimed at reforming people with extremist tendencies. The US State Department announced in January that China’s actions against the Uighurs should be classified as “genocide.” The United States has also banned imports of goods made in Xinjiang, citing the risk of forced labor in the region, and a number of Western governments have denounced China’s policies in Xinjiang, as Britain pressured China in January to allow UN human rights inspectors to visit the region. . The European Parliament condemned China in December for forced labor in Xinjiang, but many countries were muted in their responses, as Beijing warned foreign governments against interfering in their internal affairs, and the international media struggles to gather information from Xinjiang. On Thursday, China’s state broadcasting regulator said it would withdraw BBC News from broadcasting, after Britain withdrew its license to state-of-the-art Chinese television and following Chinese objections to BBC reports about abuses against Uighurs.
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