Uyghur genocide

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The Uyghur genocide (or Uighur genocide, Xinjiang genocide) is an ongoing ethnic cleansing by the People's Republic of China targeting the indigenous Karluk Turkic Muslim minority in the Xinjiang Autonomous region.

Due to the extremely secretive nature of China, and this being an ongoing story, some of the exact details have been unknown. In 2022, a leaked trove of Chinese government files was released, confirming the genocidal nature of Chinese government treatment of Uygurs.^[3][4]

Since 2017, government authorities in China have implemented oppressive policies against the Uyghur population^{[note 1]} in the province of Xinjiang. Since then, accusations that authorities in China are committing cultural genocide against the Uyghurs have been piling up.^[5][6] Under the leadership of Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang has become a surveillance state.^{[note 2]} It is estimated by some NGOs and academic scholars that there may be as many as one million people in these internment camps.^[7] In September 2020, a group of 23 organizations sent a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) urging them to launch an investigation into the CCP's crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang-^[8] an idea that was directly opposed by a joint statement from 50 nations.^[9] The situation has often been compared to previous genocides like Australia's Stolen Generations, the US and Canada's American Indian genocides, the USSR's Holodomor and the mass deportation of ethnic minorities, and Nazi Germany's Holocaust.^[10]

Genocide Watch, an organization dedicated to tracking and preventing genocide around the world, has issued a Genocide Warning for China and lists it at Stage 8 (Persecution) of the Ten Stages of Genocide.^[11] This was upgraded to a Genocide Emergency and Stage 9 (Extermination) in 2020, based on evidence of forced sterilization and forcible transfer of children.^[12]

Backgrounds[edit]

Flag of East Turkestan, still associated with the Xinjiang independence movement.

The Xinjiang conflict dates back centuries to the Qing Dynasty, which created the entity of Xinjiang in 1884 by merging two distinctively separate entities, the northern Dzungaria, mostly inhabited by the Mongol Buddhist Oirats, and the southern Tarim Basin, mostly inhabited by the Turkic Muslim Uyghurs. Centuries earlier, the Qing Emperors fought a series of wars against the Oirats, committed genocide, dwindled their population, and resettled the region with Han, Hui, Manchus, and Uyghurs. Such migrations and resettlement of peoples brought further problems over ethnic identity, as the Uyghurs believe that they are native to the region for thousands of years while the Han Chinese argued that the Chinese had long controlled the region before the ancestors of the Uyghurs arrived in the 9th century.^[15]

After the Qing Dynasty fell, the region was controlled by a series of warlords, which eventually led to the establishment of the First East Turkestan Republic in 1933 on the outskirts of Tarim Basin before it was overthrown by Soviet warlord Sheng Shicai in 1934. Sheng, a protege of Joseph Stalin, established a pro-Soviet regime and instituted a series of purges. Sheng was also influenced by the Soviet nationality policy and also introduced some arbitrary ethnic divisions,^[16] and officially using the term "Uighur" to describe different Turkic Muslim groups^{[note 3][17]} Sheng also conflicted with the rival Ma clique backed by the Hui Muslims and the Kuomintang government, and a smaller ethnic conflict between the Hui and Uyghurs exist to this day.

Sheng eventually turned against the USSR after World War II occurred and the Soviets turned their attention elsewhere, and attempted to reconcile with the KMT regime, which responded by disposing of Sheng. The Soviets helped found the Second East Turkestan Republic in northern Dzungaria in 1944, which fought against the KMT, before being incorporated into Communist China in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War, and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was established in 1955. It's worth noting that the Chairmen of XUAR (governors) are mostly filled by Uyghurs, while the CCP Secretaries, who hold greater political power, are usually filled by Han Chinese.

The region saw a population decline during the late 1950s as a result of the disastrous Great Leap Forward. Following the Sino-Soviet split, the Soviets funded several Uyghur separatist groups which heavily promoted Uyghur nationalism such as the East Turkestan People's Revolutionary Party^[18] and encouraged emigration to the Kazakh SSR and revolts against the CCP.^[19] In response, the CCP relocated non-Han groups from the border region as a defense strategy and replaced them with Han migrants, and by the 1970s, Han migration in Xinjiang drastically increased from 7% to 40%^[20] In fear of Soviet encirclement and earlier Soviet support of Uyghur separatism, the Chinese returned the favor in the Soviet-Afghanistan War by hosting Afghan Mujahideen training camps in Xinjiang.^[21]

With the fall of the USSR, secular Uyghur independence movements were gradually replaced by those influenced by Islamism, such as East Turkestan Islamic Movement, (now called Turkistan Islamic Party).^[22] They were involved in a series of terrorist attacks during the 1990s and 2000s, and founded training camps in Afghanistan and later Syria.

The July 2009 Ürümqi riots proved to be a turning point for CCP policy in the region. It began as a protest over the treatment of Uyghur migrant workers but quickly turned into ethnic riots against Han and Hui civilians before being suppressed by military police. With the ascension of Xi Jinping in 2012, military presence in the region has grown, and the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism was launched, further eroding the civil liberties of the Uyghurs, such as banning hijabs and long beards. This is supposedly due to growing concerns over foreign jihadists returning from the Syrian Civil War and several terrorist attacks by the Turkestan Islamic Party,^[23] but Uyghurs are often scapegoated by police and Han civilians for crimes committed by non-Uyghur Turkic peoples such as Kazakhs and Uzbeks. Another campaign was the Civil Servant-Family Pair Up, which encouraged Uyghurs to lodge with CCP cadres in order to instill party propaganda, and over a million people have done so.^[24]

It's worth noting that many of the religious restrictions imposed upon the Uyghurs do not apply to the Hui Muslims, who are better integrated into Chinese society and often seen by the party as a model minority,^[25] and in turn, the Hui are generally more supportive of CCP policies. The old ethnic conflict dating back to the days of the Ma clique doesn't help matters.

Evidence[edit]

Chinese state security patrol in Urumqi.

Here is a list of evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Arbitrary detention[edit]

Uyghurs are sent into the camps if they "[are] on the edge of committing a crime".^[26] They are also sent to the camps for other reasons like downloading a video that said Uyghurs who joined the Communist Party were not true Muslims, taking part in "illegal" Qur'an classes, "forcing" their parents to pray, watching an anti-Chinese video, and downloading a video to remind them to pray daily.^[27]

Unfair trials[edit]

Uyghur "terrorists" were given a list of 70 crimes (usually minor infractions) to pick from and admit to them. They were not given a lawyer at all during their trial. If they did not pick their crime, they would stay in a detention center forever. Although the evidence is testimony-based, all of the testimonies confirm each other.^[28]

Karakax list[edit]

The Karakax list is an extremely detailed list of people who were interned in the camps and the reasons why.^[29] These Uyghurs have been interned for reasons such as wearing a hijab, travelling, accessing foreign websites, applying for a passport, and having too many children, born after 1990, and relatives living abroad.^[30][31] The Karakax list is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that proves China is detaining Uyghurs based on religion, culture, and having too many children. However, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda mouthpiece Global Times attempts to deny the authenticity of the document while simultaneously justifying it.^[32] Apart from that, the authenticity of the document has been confirmed by Rian Thum, and Uyghur whistleblowers like Abduweli Ayup have confirmed it too.

Estimate of at least one million Uyghurs in camps[edit]

Chen Quanguo, CCP Secretary of Xinjiang and architect of the concentration camp policy.

Several human rights organizations, scholars, media outlets, and government agencies have estimated that there are up to one million Uyghurs (or possibly higher, depending on the source) that have been detained in these camps:

• The NGO China Human Rights Defenders has interviewed 8 Uyghurs from 8 different villages, asking them for an estimate of the number of detainees in each village. The detention rates ranged from 8-20%, and the average was 12.8% across these 8 villages. The numbers that the interviewees gave were similar to the numbers on official Chinese government documents.^[33] In the end, they conservatively estimated a 10% detention rate. Afterwards, they extrapolated this detention rate to the entire Uyghur population of ca. 10 million people.^[34] However, webshites like The Grayzone strawman their argument by conveniently omitting that each of the villagers came from a different village. They also mention that they are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, an American NGO, and this somehow invalidates their research.^[35]
• German researcher Adrian Zenz also came to this conclusion. Firstly, he found out that 892,000 people in 68 different counties were imprisoned. This number has come from a Chinese government official, and he also gave it to Istiqlal TV.^{[36][note 4]} He realised that a lot of major population centers are missing from the data. Then, he applied the detention rate of 12.3% in minority-majority areas.
• In China's white papers, they claimed that the "regional government organised 'employment-oriented training' and labour skills for nearly 1.3 million workers a year from 2014 to 2019". Some believe that these are Xinjiang's re-education camps as they have used similar terminology to describe them.^{[37][note 5]}
• There are at least 94 confirmed re-education camps, meaning that at least 10 thousand people are in each camp.^[39]However, Buzzfeed found out that the Chinese government has built 260 re-education camps since 2017.^[40]
• There is evidence that a lot of people are put in these camps. An AFP study found out that the vocational education bureau in Hotan County ordered 194,000 Chinese language practice books and 11,310 pairs of shoes.^{[41][note 6]}
• Apart from that, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute analysed 28 facilities and found out that they occupy over 2.7 million square meters of space.^[42] Zenz then found out that the estimated occupancy density is 1.5-2 detainees/sq meter.^[43]
• The number of arrests in Xinjiang increased by 700% in 2016-2017. It accounted for 21% of China's total arrests.^[44]
• BBC analysed satellite images and found out that 44 of them had the potential to be re-education camps. One of the camps in Dabancheng had the potential to house at least 11,000 detainees and at most 130,000 detainees. The low estimate assumes that each person has his/her own room, and the high estimate assumes that there are dormitories instead of individual rooms.^[45]
• According to an interview with a police officer by Radio Free Asia, 1 in 6 Uyghurs, or 16% of Uyghurs, are held in camps in Onsu County.^[46]
• Quartz has analysed them and found the methodologies to be credible.^[47]
• On July 21, 2021, Buzzfeed News published an analysis based on satellite images and other documents, suggesting that China has built enough space to lock up 1 million people in Xinjiang at the same time. The analysis estimated that the detention centers occupy a combined area of more than 206 million square feet. (Due to the widespread reports of overcrowding in Xinjiang detention camps, and the exclusion of detention camps built before 2016 from this analysis, the "million people" estimate may actually be on the low side.) By this time, the number of suspected detention camps had risen to 347.^[48]

China, naturally, has categorically denied the charges. For instance, in a long article on China Daily that begins by citing questionable sources (such as the aforementioned authoritarian sympathizer The Grayzone and Australian Alert Service, a publication by a minor Australian political party that was originally was sympathetic to Lyndon LaRouche^[49]), China defended itself from the allegations by accusing "the United States and other Western countries" that they were supporting "separatist and terrorist activities in Xinjiang out of geopolitical purposes", and attempted character assassinations and other ad hominem attacks on many of the sources creating the estimates, such as Zenz.^[50]

In this and other Chinese propaganda on this issue, usually the articles refrained from criticizing the methodology that those estimating the detention size used. (This is probably because the estimates are being concocted based on readily available information. A reporter for New Yorker and other media named Ben Mauk examined Zenz's data and determined that much of the data used for Zenz's reports was obtained from China's own government reports, public construction documents, and other readily available public sources.^[51]) Instead, the typical defense of Chinese propaganda (aside from the ad hominems) have been to claim that these camps are "vocational education and training centers", not concentration camps.^[52] While much of the propaganda dismisses estimates from scholars like Zenz without bothering to provide a number for how many people have been "trained" through these centers, in a white paper created on September 2020, China actually provided one: per the paper, 1.3 million people had been through Xinjiang's "vocational training" scheme annually for six years.^[53]

In July 22, 2021, the Associated Press was the first Western media organization allowed to tour one of these facilities, in this case a very large facility in Dabancheng, which at the time was named the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center. While Chinese officials insisted that there was "no connection between our detention center and the training centers", a former construction contractor who visited the Dabancheng facility in 2018 told the AP that the same building was previously known as the “Urumqi Vocational Skills Education and Training Center,” and it had been converted to a detention facility in 2019.^[54]

Population control[edit]

Occupation of homes[edit]

Now that you got Uyghurs in camps, what do you do with the empty houses? Simple, get your own people to occupy the homes!^[55] Scarily, the strangers require to Uyghurs to refer to them as "relatives", and their job is twofold. First, to ensure that the Uyghur households are properly indoctrinated. Second, to keep a close watch over every private detail of everyone's home life, from the books they read to the words they say. For example, if a Uyghur greets someone with the Arabic phrase Assalamu alaykum., reads the Qu'ran, grows out their beard, or prays on Friday or fasts during Ramadan, these need to be jotted down in their notebook.

Sexual abuse[edit]

Chinese officials have been abusing the situation to force Uyghur women to share their beds.^[56] Of course, the officials' stances are that this is all perfectly normal and no officials have been taking advantage of the women. Besides, it's not as if the officials themselves have access to a system that can make people who complain too loudly simply disappear, such as, say, a number of giant concentration camps.

Perhaps more disturbingly, many women are being forced into marriages with some of these officials.^[57] Women who refuse may find themselves or their family members sent to the reeducation camps until they agree, and given the conditions of the camps, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they will be raped or worse there. As is usual in these cases, there doesn't seem to be too many Uyghur men being forced into any marriages. Essentially, the next generation of Uyghurs will be mixed race and the Uyghurs will cease to exist as a distinct ethnic group, and it's unlikely the children raised in such conditions will be given any education on their non-Han Chinese heritage.

Forced abortions/sterilizations[edit]

Guma (Pishan) County 2019 family planning targets for birth prevention measures among pastoralist and farming populations.^[58][59]

China has lowered the birth rates of the Uyghur population through sterilizations, forced abortions, and forced birth control.^[60] Pregnancy checks are now routine, which is a major privacy violation to say the least. Refusal to comply with any of this may result in being sent for "re-education". A family having too many children, which is basically any more than two kids per family, is another reason for being sent away, and former detainees have testified that they underwent forced sterilization. If these testimonies turn out to be true, this proves that genocide is taking place.^[61] One doctor has confirmed that a Uyghur refugee has been forcibly sterilized.^[62] Another Uyghur gynecologist, who fled to Turkey in 2011, claimed that China's policy of forcibly inserting IUDs (without the women consenting or even knowing what was happening) had been enacted since at least 1980, and she alone sometimes performed up to 80 sterilization surgeries a day.^[63]

A handful of Chinese documents suggest that the Chinese government is using birth prevention on the Uyghurs. The document on the right shows the CCP attempting to suppress Uyghur birth rates in pastoralist and farming populations.^[59]

On June 29^th 2020, an AP investigation also found strong evidence for the "demographic genocide". Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization had fallen nationwide during that year, it was rising sharply in Xinjiang. According to the report, having too many children, or failure to comply with being assigned to get a sterilization procedure, was a significant reason for Uyghurs being sent to the concentration camps.^[64]

Note: These activities may need to be understood in the context of China's one-child policy. This poorly managed social engineering policy, combined with a cultural preference for sons, resulted in Chinese women getting sex-selective abortions of female fetuses, abandoning baby girls in orphanages, or even the outright murder of female infants. Whatever the method, the clear result is a severe shortage of women in the current generation, leading to a lot of unrest among the tens of millions of men who simply will never find wives or be able to start their own families. China's solution to this problem may be to simply dump this problem on someone else. In this lens, the "threat of violence" from the Uighurs is merely a convenient excuse; even if the Uighurs were to somehow overnight become pacified, model Chinese citizens, the concentration camps and forced marriages would still continue because this a war over women that's only thinly disguised as some sort of "defensive" action. In short, the destruction of an ethnic minority isn't the goal, it's just a side effect, and one could argue that "atrocity as a result of indifference" is actually worse.

Camp conditions[edit]

Here are a list of videos, data, testimonies, and leaked documents regarding the nature of the camps.

Leaked documents[edit]

Leaked documents obtained by the New York Times found out how the camps are operated. For example, the documents state that the "students" were not allowed to leave the schools. Apart from that, the students were told that their behavior could either shorten or extend the detention of their relatives and advised that the camps were for their own good. In order to cheer up the students, they told officials “to show humane concern and stress the rules.” This may make it easier to indoctrinate them. They also made sure to tell the students not to worry. However, the most important thing about the documents is that President Xi Jinping wants to deal with them with "absolutely no mercy".^[14] And despite tankies claiming otherwise, the campaign is strongly influenced by America's own War on Terror, with Xi Jinping himself encouraging officials to adopt some of its worst elements.^[14] Apart from that, the CCP does not deny the legitimacy of the documents.^[66]

Another set of documents called the China Cables were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. They serve as a manual for how to operate the camps. The manual (actually a telegram) describes certain things in great detail such as how to prevent escapes, how to maintain total secrecy^{[note 7]}, how to control disease outbreaks^{[note 8]}, how detainees can meet their relatives, and how to use the toilet.^[67]

The China Cables also contained a nine-page memo for the camp operators ordering them to tighten restrictions. Among the memo's orders were "Increase discipline and punishment of behavioural violations", "Promote repentance and confession", "Make remedial Mandarin studies the top priority", and "[Ensure] full video surveillance coverage of dormitories and classrooms free of blind spots".^[68] The memo also contains the sinister directive, "For those who harbour vague understandings, negative attitudes or even feelings of resistance... carry out education transformation to ensure that results are achieved."^[68]

These documents are important as they corroborate the testimonies of former detainees (shown below) and are extremely consistent. Bring that up when someone screeches "NAYIRAH!!!!!!!!"

White papers[edit]

The white papers released by the Chinese government are further proof something is wrong in Xinjiang.^[69] An analysis by the Communist Party of India's official website shows that its "anti-terrorism" policy is similar to the Islamophobic and authoritarian policies after 9/11.^{[note 9]} Apart from that, its policy of preventing crime is similar to America's method of policing black-majority neighborhoods.^[66]

Prison footage[edit]

Leaked drone footage of blindfolded and shackled prisoners.^[70]

Although the camps are portrayed to look like wonderful schools, the camps that they don't show to the public function more like prisons. Footage captured by Bitter Winter in a camp shows that the re-education camps are designed like prisons. Each of the exterior windows is fitted with a lot of guard railings and guard netting, and the facilities are filled with surveillance cameras and have large surveillance rooms.^{[note 10]} Every room has surveillance cameras, even the toilets. There are also propaganda slogans on the walls such as "Heartfelt thanks for the cordial care of the Central Party Committee with comrade Xi Jinping", "make a habit of studying Mandarin", and "Follow the guidance of Xi Jinping's thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era and untiringly strive to realize the China dream of a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". Finally, there are areas surrounded by chain-linked fencing and a pile of unused wire netting.^[71]

Apart from that, their builders told Bitter Winter that they have been built on a prison model. Furthermore, there have been pictures that show factories inside "transformation through education" camps.^{[72][note 11]}

One of the workers in a re-education camp, 'Mr. Liu' (a pseudonym), occasionally referred to his workplace as a "prison". According to Liu, "Too many people are locked up here and perhaps, because of that, [they will] feel short on manpower. [Their] rotating time-off days are often cancelled, and [they] seldom get to take breaks. [Liu doesn't] know how much longer this high-pressure situation will continue.' He also explained that the camps have a quota to fill. If the Uyghurs in the region cannot fill up the camps, they will send religious people instead.^[73]

Evidence that proves that the camps are like prisons/function like prisons further validate testimonies from former detainees.^[74]

Forced labor[edit]

As early as 2018, reports emerged that forced labor was a common feature in the concentration camps. China, of course denied that anything was forced, calling the camps "vocational training centers". Reports, if true, show that the purpose was clearly not vocational, but subjugation. Even those with high skill sets, such as businessmen, health professionals, scientists, or intellectuals, were forced into sweatshops to make garments. Prisoners "Workers" were subject to electronic monitoring at all times (cameras were even placed in bathrooms). Ethnic workers, who were referred to in policy documents as "surplus workers" who had "lazy thinking", were shacked, handcuffed, locked in their cubical workspace, and of course, not compensated for any work. Glorification of the Communist Party was, of course, mandatory as well. This caused concern that products made in Xinjiang, such as cotton (more than 20% of the world's cotton comes from the Uyghur region) and garments, could violate international regulations on using products made by coersion. Given the complexity of the global supply chain, there was concern that corporations wouldn't even know that the material they used was made by a form of modern slavery.^{[75][76][77][78][79]}

Beginning around 2020, many brands were under pressure from NGOs and concerned customers to stop using cotton from the Xinjiang region. Companies that announced any sort of supply review, however, took the risk of being subject to Chinese "cancel culture" for having the audacity to not use Chinese products made with slave labor. As an example, in March 24, 2021, the Communist Youth League (who are well connected to the Chinese government, and showed that Chinese authorities played a large part in stoking up the mob) took a months-old statement by H&M expressing concern over the use of forced labor in Xinjiang cotton, and whipped up a nationalism-fueled boycott. Naturally, a social media mob followed, expanding to include many other western brands. Users on the Chinese Twitter-like social media site Weibo shared "national pride" videos consisting of them burning Nike shoes. H&M products were wiped from Chinese e-commerce stores.^[80] This left many multinational companies in a bind. In one sign of the corporate conflict, a spokesperson for the Chinese operation of Hugo Boss expressed support for Xinjiang cotton. Shortly afterwords, a spokesperson for the international operation of Hugo Boss declared the post "unauthorized" and expressed concern over allegations of forced labor.^[81][82]

This is a section in CCTV's propaganda tour around a re-education camp.^[83]

Staged tours[edit]

A majority of the footage has come from staged tours. The CCP has attempted to portray the camps as schools where Uyghurs can learn different jobs. The Uyghurs usually dance and sing folk songs. However, there are several incidents where Uyghurs learn CCP propaganda, such as copying the lyrics of "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" on a computer. Although this is normal in most Chinese schools (which indoctrinate Chinese children with CCP propaganda), this shows that the Chinese government treats them like children. They also sing nursery-level songs like "If you're happy and you know it" in the camps.^[84] The majority of the YouTube comments in BBC's video were negative towards the camps and chastised them for being "creepy" and "spooky". This is similar to the reaction of a handful Chinese netizens on Weibo, a Chinese (and censored) version of Twitter. One netizen used sarcasm and said:

Another said, in a sarcastic tone,

One more netizen said that:

It should be noted that some of the comments on the video are positive towards the camps, with some describing Islam as a disease.^[83]

Adrian Zenz also made a rebuttal on the thread. He noticed that the facial and body expressions did not match what they were saying, only showed the upper part of the facility, reciting the propaganda word by word, and the Xinjiang minister felt nervous.^[85]

The majority of staged tours have a lot in common:

• They focus on specific camps (e.g Hotan and Kashgar camps) and not suspicious ones. An example would be the re-education camp in Yining province that is way more guarded and prison-like.
• Chinese state media carefully omit all the negative things in the camps. Most mainstream media show the same thing, but they occasionally show the poor living conditions and mass surveillance in the camps.
• They only show their "re-educated" prisoners.

Some people have compared these camps to Theresienstadt Ghetto, which at one time was used as a Potemkin village.^[86][87]

Cultural genocide[edit]

Beards[edit]

Abnormally long beards are banned in Xinjiang because they supposedly breed terrorism, and people with long beards can be banned from riding public buses. In fact, a Uyghur man was sentenced for having a long beard.^[88] A handful of CCP apologists will attempt to justify this by claiming that terrorists usually have unusually long beards and this fashion normalizes extremist ideas. By that logic, Skinhead culture and bald heads should be banned because they normalize Neo-Nazism.^[89]

Mosques[edit]

An investigation by The Guardian and Bellingcat suggests that China is working on demolishing Uyghur mosques and shrines. One notable example would be the Imam Asim Shrine, which is a group of buildings and fences surrounding a small mud tomb believed to have the remains of a holy Islamic warrior from the 8^th century CE. Pilgrims from all around the region would go there and find the site. However, it was completely gone on April 2019. In addition, 31 more mosques and 2 more shrines have been destroyed in Xinjiang.^[90][91]

Around China[edit]

Although there is evidence that China is attempting to destroy mosques in Xinjiang, the Chinese government is also actively "sinicizing" (a euphemism for assimilation and indoctrination) Islam around China. For example, domes were removed from mosques in Henan, Hebei and Ningxia provinces during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anyone who tried to stop the "sinicization" campaign was arrested. Apart from that, the mosques have increased surveillance as well.^[92]

Social Media[edit]

In August 2019, several news outlets reported that China was using Facebook and Twitter to spread propaganda that Xinjiang's Internment Camps are just super happy fun places, where life is beautiful all the time, ha ha!^[93][94] On April 6, 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that (typical for Facebook, who will take any advertisement money no matter how crooked) the Chinese government was still spreading propaganda bullshit through that advertising platform, making some Facebook employees uneasy.^[95]

On March 24^th 2021, Facebook said it removed a group of government sponsored China-based hackers (known as EvilEye in cybersecurity circles) that were specifically targeting Uyghur refugees abroad (in particular activists, journalists, and dissidents) in order to add spyware to their electronic devices.^[96][97]

Coverup[edit]

These coverups prove three things that show their propaganda fails:

1. The CCP is constantly changing the narrative and hence is unreliable (indicative of consciousness of guilt).
2. They use propaganda points ad nauseam and refuted by us in the bottom section.
3. They are unable to explain certain things that contradict their narrative.

2018[edit]

At first, the CCP denied the camps. Hu Lianhe, a high ranking CCP official, told the UN that “there is no such thing as re-education centers" or "counter-extremism training centers" in Xinjiang.^[98][99] The Chinese ministry of foreign affairs has said that they have not heard about these camps.^[100] However, due to the increasing backlash and evidence, the Chinese government has admitted to the existence of the camps. They tried to frame them as "vocational training centers" for criminals and terrorists. Shohrat Zakir said that "these centers are boarding schools".^[101] Shortly after the CCP admitted to the existence of the camps, they released a documentary about the camps on the Chinese propaganda network CCTV.^[83]

2019[edit]

Mihrigul Tursun, a former detainee who testified to the US Congress.

In 2018, Mihrigul Tursun, a former detainee, testified to the US Congress. She said that the authorities put a helmet-like thing on her head and electrocuted her. Apart from that, they also made her feel ashamed for being a Uyghur. She also stated that one of her children died and two of her children are in critical health condition.^[1][2] Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying denied the accusations and said that she was never sent into a re-education camp. She also claimed that the children were sick due to natural causes.^[102] The only way she could prove this was through (most likely false) testimonies by Mihrigul's alleged mother and alleged brother shown on Chinese state propaganda outlet CGTN.^{[103][note 13]}

Later on, the CCP attempted to cover up their actions by getting "Uyghur scholars" to attack the American Secretary of state Mike Pompeo. It feels suspicious as it is too spontaneous and feels like an astroturf movement. Apart from that, scholars are usually silenced international affairs like 9/11, the Iraq War, the rise of ISIS, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Brexit, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. They are also banned from talking about sensitive subjects in Xinjiang, especially the terrorist attacks. In addition, multiple prominent Uyghur scholars have been arbitrarily detained or sent to a re-education camp. About 124 of these famous scholars have been recorded.^[104][105]

In December 2019, many Uyghur refugees went on social media and started the #Stillnoinfo campaign in response to China claiming that the camps have been closed. The Chinese government launched a propaganda campaign and pretended that they were lying.^[106] However, it is very likely that they are forced interviews.^[107] The creator of the hashtag, Bahram Sintash, believes that the international community will not fall for this propaganda. RFA spoke with Abdullah Rasul, the husband of Halinur’s cousin Raziyegul Ablimit, and said that the CGTN "interview" was most likely fake. Rasul also told Radio Free Asia that Halinur's husband and their child were arbitrarily arrested. Apart from that, her Chinese was very fluent, so there would be no reason for her to go to a camp. Finally, she felt shaky and distressed during the interview.^[106][108] A reminder that other missing Uyghurs, such as the Hamdullah family, also didn't reappear.^[109]

Reactions[edit]

Sadly, global reactions to the persecution of Uyghurs are relatively mild, in comparison to the Rohingya genocide in Burma which drew harsh condemnations from across the Muslim world and landed Burma in international courts. This is largely due to China's global economic and political influence, having a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, and that the Uyghur persecution has not devolved into mass killings (yet).

On September 22, 2020, the US government passed several bills condemning China's treatment of the Uyghurs. To nobody's surprise however, Donald Trump privately told Xi Jinping that incarcerating Uyghurs in camps "was exactly the right thing to do".^[110] Some loonier Islamophobes and White nationalists share Trump's sentiment, who not only do not deny it, but claim that it's the greatest thing ever.

On January 13, 2021, under Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump's Secretary of State, (in a rare stopped clock moment and a dramatic reversal from Trump's private thoughts to Xi) Trump's administration banned imports of cotton and tomatoes from the Xinjiang area, citing human rights violations and the widespread use of forced labor in the region.^[111] The Trump administration also declared China's repression of the Uyghurs as "genocide".^[112] The "genocide" claim, in a rare example of something that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on, was echoed by the Secretary of State of Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, on April 11, 2021.^[113]

In March 2021, the United States, the European Union, and Britain slapped sanctions on top Chinese officials as part of a multinational effort to punish Beijing for the genocide.^[114] China responded by sanctioning the lawmakers and academics who dared to pointed it out.

It seems that some people are finally getting the message by this point, despite an awful initial reaction. In April 2021, the UK government passed a bipartisan, non-binding motion recognising the events in Xinjiang as crimes against humanity and genocide.^[115] Despite the weak nature of the statement, China are mega-pissed now, but that's been a common occurrence since Xi Jinping so...

On January 20 2022, the parliament of France passed its own motion asking the government to condemn China for "crimes against humanity and genocide" against its Uyghur minority.^[116]

Denialism and apologism[edit]

Not just a river in Egypt Denialism

Alternative facts

Oregon Petition American exceptionalism House of Numbers Clean coal Obama citizenship denial Climate change

♫ We're not listening ♫

Scott Adams Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Eustace Mullins Silvio Berlusconi Tarō Asō Spiked v - t - e

But Adrian Zenz is far-right![edit]

Rebuttal: Zenz holds far-right, anti-semitic and fundamentalist^[117]:290 beliefs, but they do not inherently invalidate his research. Given that there have been previous far-right conspiracy theories involving China such as the Lab leak theory, it merely indicates that his research requires significant scrutiny. Even a far-right person can be occasionally right. This is a form of ad hominem and poisoning the well. They also claim that he is the only person who talks about this topic (some will make up big statistics like "90%"); this is blatant bullshit as there are other Xinjiang-related scholars like Timothy Grose, Darren Byler, and Dru Gladney, and many others who cover this topic. Similarly, the support of the Uyghur cause by far-right opportunists like Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton in no way invalidates actual testimonies from Uyghur refugees and reputable researchers.

Most of this information comes from The Grayzone, a source that does not have the best track record for accuracy. For example, they cherrypicked several quotes from Wall Street Journal's article about Zenz, trying to paint him as some delusional maniac who is hallucinating. In reality, the article only showed that Zenz was inspired to do research about it, stating "I feel very clearly led by God to do this. I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry."^[118]

Didn't CHRD only interview eight Uyghurs?[edit]

As stated earlier, the Grayzone strawmanned their claim.

But Radio Free Asia is US state media![edit]

Rebuttal: Communists and tankies also claim that most of the Xinjiang info comes from Radio Free Asia. They will bring up their history of being CIA propagandists.^[119] Ironically, they cite a lot of Chinese state media like CGTN, Global Times, Xinhua and China Daily.

When all else fails, they will talk about how America previously used false pretenses to justify war scenarios (e.g. the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Nayirah Testimony and WMDs.) This is a variant of the media was wrong before fallacy. It's worth pointing out that the stories were also independently verified by reputable, non-government funded media such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, which has generally been critical of the US, but has also received criticism for its pro-Zionist whitewashing in the Gaza war^[120]. In contrast, Chinese state media are subject to official censorship, failed numerous fact checks, and perpetuated lies such as that the "silent majority" opposed the Hong Kong protests.^{[121][122][123]}

With all that said, there is nothing wrong with noting that publicizing the human rights abuses of its geopolitical enemies fall in line with US foreign policy, although US criticisms of Chinese policy in Xinjiang were relatively muted until 2020, when relations between the two countries broke down following the COVID-19 pandemic. And even then, it is currently not in the US's interests to wage war or encourage regime change on a nuclear power and one of its major trading partners, however this is becoming more the case as US-China relations continue to deteriorate. In fact, prior to the US government cynically exploiting the situation for its own political purposes, progressive leftists have long pointed out that the Xinjiang authorities has exploited the Bush administration's War on Terror rhetoric, and used similar Islamophobic language to demonize the Uyghurs, something that most leftists, even tankies, rightfully oppose.^[124][125]

IUDs are reversible![edit]

Rebuttal: China has had a history of using IUDs as a form of forced contraception, so it's not unlikely that they would be using them again this time on the Uyghurs.^[126]

Muslim countries support the camps![edit]

Countries that support (orange), oppose (blue) and those, who used to support (purple) the Xinjiang re-education camps

Blue countries are in the BRI. Note that most, if not all, of the countries that support the camps are part of the BRI. Some countries that are BRI condemn the camps as they are not that economically dependent.

Rebuttal: Muslims are not a hive mind. A majority of these Muslim countries also happen to be a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, which is a huge red flag since this makes these countries extremely economically dependent on China and are unlikely to criticize it. Apart from that, something seems suspicious when Saudi Arabia, which is one of the biggest sponsors of Islamic terrorism (especially Salafist/Sunni terrorism),^[127] and which is currently waging a genocidal war in Yemen, claim to supports the destruction of Sunni terrorism. Pakistan is also a huge ally of China.^{[128][note 14]} Unsurprisingly, both these countries also collaborated with the US's own War on Terror to stamp out dissent and terrorize their own civilian populations.

Another plausible explanation is that the Uyghurs, being a Turkic people, have strong cultural ties with Turkey, which itself is involved in an ongoing dispute alongside Qatar and Iran with the rest of Arab World. This, together with the presence of some Uyghur Jihadist groups fighting alongside Turkey-backed groups in the Syrian Civil War, allowed the Uyghurs to be derogated by some as some sorts of Turkish proxies.^[129] And to nobody's surprise, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan value economic relationships over human rights, and Turkish authorities have been cracking down Uighur dissidents inside Turkey.^[130][131]

8.7%, not 80%![edit]

Rebuttal: This is a flagrant misrepresentation of Zenz's study. An analysis by Darren Byler found out that he was actually looking at the ratio of new IUD insertions (column 3 in the yearbook) as compared to numbers of IUDs removed (column 6). Apart from that, Zenz was looking at changes from 2015-2018. Finally, Byler did a further analysis and found out that the total number of IUDs in XUAR is 45 times higher than the national average, as opposed to other places in China like Henan which had 9 times higher than the national average.^[132]

According to Zenz, he calculated the newly inserted IUDs by subtracting the removed IUDs by the total amount.^[59]

Han Population decreased in the same time![edit]

Rebuttal: This is used to imply that correlation does not imply causation, so therefore a genocide is not happening.^[133] However, the reason why the Han population decreased is actually caused by the ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang. According to a source close to the CCP, “Wang has said in his briefings that even the Han people are deeply dissatisfied [by the crackdown]”. For example, the population in Korla has halved since the re-education camps have been set up. The economy in this city has decreased due to the mass migration.^[134][135]

The birth rate decrease can be explained by poverty reduction![edit]

Rebuttal: Denialists, including the Chinese government, claim that the sudden drop can be explained by demographic transition.^[133] They try to make comparisons to the White genocide conspiracy theory in order to poison the well.^[136] In doing so, they usually would refer to statements made by Adrian Zenz insinuating a white genocide. For example, Zenz has stated on page 241 of Worthy to Escape, "To put it differently, God will use the Antichrist’s reign of terror to make the world more black-and-white: “black” being the evil deeds of the unbelieving, and “white” being the righteous acts of the saints. People will either take the mark of the beast or they will refuse it and suffer the consequences—there will be no choice in between the two." However, demographic transition happens over a longer period of time than one year.

Apart from that, the economy of Korla has diminished due to the crackdown, so this refutes this claim that there is significant economic development in the region.^[135]

Finally, Hotan City's family planning documents tell them to make sure that the birth rate in 2019 should not exceed 2018's, showing that they are planning on suppressing birth rates.^[137]

The birth rate decreased because extremism was eradicated![edit]

Rebuttal: The US embassy to China, linking to a state media article, tweeted this claim in January 2021, and added that thanks to the so-called elimination of "extremism", "the minds of Uygur women were emancipated" and the women were no "baby-making machines". The post not only showed the callous attitude of many Chinese officials towards the Uyghur, but also explained nothing about why Xinjiang's population growth was declining well above the national average in 2020, pretty much revealing the bullshit propaganda for what it was.^[138] This clearly dehumanizing post was enough, after some pressure, for Twitter to lock the China US embassy account.^[139][140]

There are over 25,000 mosques in Xinjiang![edit]

Rebuttal: Their argument also talks about how there is one mosque for every 500 Muslims. Then, they compare it to America's ratio (1 mosque for 1643 Muslims). This is an extremely flawed counter-argument as the ratio in Myanmar, noted for its own persecution of Rohingya Muslims, is 1 mosque for every 800 Muslims. Apart from that, they forget that the mosques are surveilled and razed.^[141] The Chinese government has also admitted to assimilating (their word for it is "Sinicizing") the top 5 religions in China (this includes Islam along with other mainstream religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Catholicism, and Taoism).^{[142][note 15]}

CCP apologists will also point to random videos showing mass prayers in China. However, these videos are usually not situated in Xinjiang, but in some Han-majority area like Qinghai. Again, they straw man the argument that Islam is completely banned in China. In reality, the main point is to "Sinicize" religion and force religious people to obey the CCP through religion (e.g putting pictures of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping in churches).^[143] Religions and cults that are a threat to the CCP's rule will be persecuted like Falun Gong and Eastern Lightning.^{[note 16]}

A Chinese scholar refuted it![edit]

Adrian Zenz has written a well-sourced rebuttal to it.^[144][59]

But terrorist incidents have gone down since the camps opened![edit]

Because stripping an ethnicity of their rights and identity never caused long-term conflicts in history, right? Also, correlation does not imply causation.

The IPVM purposely mistranslated Huawei documents![edit]

For some context, surveillence research group IPVM released a report on Dec 8, 2020, that alleged Huawei was using AI to track and scan for Uyghurs. To prove this, they cited Huawei documents.^[145] Of course, denialist subreddits like r/Sino and r/Genzedong said this was a mistranslation. However, this is a dumb argument because Huawei themselves did not say it was a mistranslation, infact, they explained it by saying the code was just a test and didnt see real world use, and simply denying they make algorithms to detect ethnicities, but they never addressed the document itself. If this were a mistranslation, Huawei and the PRC gov't could easily have proved it as such to save face, but they didn't. Also, there are other areas in the document other than the ones r/Sino pointed out that talk face recognition based on ethnicity. Finally, other Chinese companies have been involved with facial tracking of Uyghurs, so Huawei doing it as well really isn't that suprising.^[146]

The World Bank have visited and found nothing wrong, and China wants the UN High Commissioner to visit![edit]

The World Bank visited Xinjiang in November to review a specific project titled the Xinjiang Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project. There are a number of issues with this argument.

1. This was a review of a specific program funded and approved by the World Bank; they reviewed documentation of their specific project. The World Bank doesn't oversee all the 'schools' in China, and the specific project they reviewed has its status as 'closed' on its page.^[147] The existence of actual education centers in Xinjiang don't automatically remove the existence of concentration camps either. You can read a quote from their statement, as follows:

"The team conducted a thorough review of project documents, engaged in discussions with project staff, and visited schools directly financed by the project, as well as their partner schools that were the subject of allegations. The review did not substantiate the allegations. In light of the risks associated with the partner schools, which are widely dispersed and difficult to monitor, the scope and footprint of the project is being reduced. Specifically, the project component that involves the partner schools in Xinjiang is being closed."

2. Even if this was an actual review of evidence for the Uyghur genocide in general, this was in November 11, 2019, 5 days before leaked government documents appeared from the New York Times, and 13 days before the China Cables Documents from the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists.^{[148][149][150]} This means that more credible evidence emerged afterwards.

3. Regarding China inviting the UN High Commissioner to visit, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said that the visit would not be to "conduct a so-called 'investigation' with a presumption of guilt".^[151] A guided visit by a known authoritarian government isn't exactly the most reassuring. Important to note, guided visits turning up nothing wrong isn't new. North Korea does guided tours of their country, and nothing appears to be wrong, so North Korea must be a perfectly fine country, right? Bottom line, China invited the UN High Commissioner for a guided tour, nothing else.

Why don't we see more Uyghur refugees in neighboring countries?[edit]

Rebuttal: It is very hard for them to flee China, for several reasons:

1. Checkpoints are omnipresent.^[152] Making it to the border with multiple bag and ID checks is a hard task.

2. Neighboring countries (Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikstan) are more likely to extradite refugees back to China than offer refuge, due to their friendly relations with the Chinese government.

3. Relatives left behind can be punished in the form of detention for their escaped family member's actions. This is evident from official documents which cite having a relative who "escaped abroad" as reason for detention.^[153]

4. Wanting to go to a Muslim country could be construed as the pre-crime of "intending to hijirat." This Arabic word originally means the migration to a place where Islam can be practiced unhindered, but has come to be defined by the Chinese state as a terrorist activity.^[154] This is most likely due to violent incidents in the past involving Uyghurs trying to secretly emigrate:[2].

See also[edit]

• China
• Xi Jinping
• Tibet
• Potemkin village
• War on Terror
• Cultural genocide
• Stolen Generations
• American Indian boarding schools

External Links[edit]

• Breaking Down the Xinjiang Crisis — Translations and analysis of Chinese government documents/Destroying denialist arguments with facts and logic.
• Xinjiang Documentation Project — Timelines and context

Notes[edit]

References[edit]