380 secret detention camps for Muslim minorities found in China

[Chanakyaa]

380 secret detention camps for Muslim minorities found in China, group says

More of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank says.

www.cbsnews.com

China appears to be expanding its network of secret detention centers in Xinjiang, where predominantly Muslim minorities are targeted in a forced assimilation campaign, and more of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank has found. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute used satellite images and official construction tender documents to map more than 380 suspected detention facilities in the far northwestern region, highlighting internment camps, detention centers and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.

PROJECT LAUNCH
Today ASPI launches 'The Xinjiang Data Project' mapping Xinjiang’s detention system with 380 sites of suspected re-education camps, detention centres and prisons that have been built or expanded since 2017. View the interactive map https://t.co/iykruAT4PP pic.twitter.com/xpNphYlhwI
— ASPI (@ASPI_org) September 24, 2020

The report builds on evidence that China has made a policy shift from detaining Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in makeshift public buildings to constructing permanent mass detention facilities.

This is despite Chinese state news agency Xinhua reporting late last year that "trainees" attending "vocational education and training centers" meant to deradicalize them had "all graduated."

Regional government chairman Shohrat Zakir was quoted as saying that foreign media reports of 1 million or 2 million people attending these centers were fabricated, though he would not provide any figures.

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Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Friday dismissed the report as "pure disinformation and slander," saying the Australian institute had "no academic credibility." China does not operate "so-called detention camps" in Xinjiang, Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying gestures during a daily briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Beijing, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020.ANDY WONG / AP
Citing media reports and investigations by internet users, Wang said one of the sites in the report had been identified as an electronics manufacturing park and another as a five-star residential complex.

"So we also hope that all sectors can distinguish truth from falsehood and together resist such absurd assertions concocted by anti-China institutions," Wang said.

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Predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region have been locked in camps as part of a government assimilation campaign launched in response to decades of sometimes violent struggle against Chinese rule. Though officials described the camps as "boarding school-like" facilities meant to provide free job training, former detainees say they were subjected to brutal conditions, political indoctrination, beatings, and sometimes psychological and physical torture.

Under the assimilation drive, the state has forced Uighurs to undergo sterilizations and abortions, an Associated Press investigation found, and in recent months, has ordered them to drink traditional Chinese medicines to combat the coronavirus.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute researcher Nathan Ruser wrote in the report released late Thursday: "Available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang's vast 're-education' network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for coerced labor assignments."

At least 61 detention sites had undergone new construction and expansion work in a year to July 2020, the report said. These included at least 14 facilities still under construction this year.

"Of these, about 50% are higher security facilities, which may suggest a shift in usage from the lower-security, 're-education centers' toward higher-security prison-style facilities," Ruser wrote.

At least 70 facilities appeared to have lesser security by the removal of internal fencing or perimeter walls, the report said.

These included eight camps that showed signs of decommissioning, and had possibly been closed. Of the camps stripped of security infrastructure, 90% were lower security facilities, the report said.

The think tank's findings align with AP interviews with dozens of relatives and former detainees that indicate many in the camps have been sentenced in secret, extrajudicial trials and transferred to high-security prisons for things like having contact with people abroad, having too many children and studying Islam. Many others deemed less of a risk, like women or the elderly, have been transferred to a form of house arrest or forced labor in factories.

First published on September 25, 2020 / 10:10 AM

 

[vi-va]

Have a job and girl friend. I think you are bored.

 

[Chanakyaa]

NEWS 2 :

Chinese satellite images reveal country's horrific secret

An Australian report has shed further light on a widely condemned practice in China's west.

au.news.yahoo.com

Chinese satellite images reveal country's horrific secret

Tom Flanagan
News Reporter
Yahoo News Australia25 September 2020


Scrutiny over China’s controversial and heavily-criticised detention camps continues to mount as one of Australia’s leading think tanks claimed Beijing had ramped up construction of facilities that house more than one million imprisoned Uyghurs over the last year.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said it had identified more than 380 "suspected detention facilities" in Xinjiang province, where China is believed to have held more than one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking residents.
The number of facilities is around 40 per cent greater than previous estimates, the research said, and has been growing despite China's claims that many Uyghurs have been released.
Based on satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts, media reports and official construction tender documents, the institute said "at least 61 detention sites have seen new construction and expansion work between July 2019 and July 2020".
One satellite image included in the ASPI report from January shows a brand new facility near the city of Kashgar. Earlier satellite images show the site was previously barren landscape.

One of the newly built detention camps, according to the ASPI. Source: ASPI

Around half of the new centres are higher security facilities, which report author Nathan Ruser believes could move towards prison-style facilities.
"The findings of this research contradict Chinese officials' claims that all 'trainees' from so-called vocational training centres had 'graduated' by late 2019," he said.
"Instead, available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang's vast "re-education" network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for coerced labour assignments."
China continues to face widespread condemnation for the camps, which in recent months have been propelled into the media spotlight.
Allegations of mental and physical torture in the facilities are rife, with inhabitants forced to learn Mandarin and criticise and renounce their faith.

A Chinese police officer takes his position by the road near what is officially called a vocational education centre in Yining in Xinjiang. Source: Reuters
Beijing stresses the camps are for “vocational training” purposes and primarily tackle poverty in the once autonomous region.
China’s control over the region has tightened in the past two decades, and in recent years has reached new levels with President Xi Jinping desperate to come down hard on “violent terrorism”.
Uyghur Mirehmet Ablet told Yahoo News Australia earlier this year the 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted the Chinese government’s meticulous control over the region’s 10 million Uyghurs.
More recent terrorism incidents, including the 2014 Kunming massacre which saw 31 civilians killed in a knife attack at a train station in China’s southwest, have only prompted further action in Xinjiang after links to separatists.

A Uighur woman pulls a buggy carrying her sons as she walks past residential buildings under construction in Uqturpan county, Xinjiang. Source: ReutersChina slams ‘ludicrous findings’
On Thursday, China denied ASPI’s findings, and once again lashed out at ASPI for its “fat-distorting reports” and “passion lies”.
“Imbued with ideological prejudice, it is practically an anti-China "vanguard" whose academic integrity is in serious question,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.
“The ASPI has come under wide criticism for what it has done and stands as a laughing stock in the world. We hope and trust that people will all see through and reject the ludicrous findings of such anti-China organisations.”
Beijing recently published a white paper defending its policies in Xinjiang, where it says training programmes, work schemes and better education mean life has improved.
It claims to have given "training sessions" to an average of 1.29 million workers each year between 2014 and 2019.
Following the publication of the ASPI report, the Chinese government-controlled nationalist tabloid Global Times cited "sources" as saying contributors Clive Hamilton and Alex Joske were banned from entering China.
Wang did not confirm if the two academics had been banned on Thursday, but said the matter was "totally within the scope of China's sovereignty".

 

[Surya 1]

380 secret detention camps for Muslim minorities found in China, group says

More of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank says.

www.cbsnews.com

China appears to be expanding its network of secret detention centers in Xinjiang, where predominantly Muslim minorities are targeted in a forced assimilation campaign, and more of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank has found. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute used satellite images and official construction tender documents to map more than 380 suspected detention facilities in the far northwestern region, highlighting internment camps, detention centers and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.


The report builds on evidence that China has made a policy shift from detaining Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in makeshift public buildings to constructing permanent mass detention facilities.

This is despite Chinese state news agency Xinhua reporting late last year that "trainees" attending "vocational education and training centers" meant to deradicalize them had "all graduated."

Regional government chairman Shohrat Zakir was quoted as saying that foreign media reports of 1 million or 2 million people attending these centers were fabricated, though he would not provide any figures.

Get Breaking News Delivered to Your Inbox

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Friday dismissed the report as "pure disinformation and slander," saying the Australian institute had "no academic credibility." China does not operate "so-called detention camps" in Xinjiang, Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying gestures during a daily briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Beijing, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020.ANDY WONG / AP
Citing media reports and investigations by internet users, Wang said one of the sites in the report had been identified as an electronics manufacturing park and another as a five-star residential complex.

"So we also hope that all sectors can distinguish truth from falsehood and together resist such absurd assertions concocted by anti-China institutions," Wang said.

Trending News

• Japanese official slams Trump "dictatorship," quickly deletes tweet
• Kids have regressed due to COVID restrictions, with some going back to diapers
• No State Dept role in Biden congratulatory calls with foreign leaders
• Italy sees 580 virus deaths in one day: "It's exploding again"

Predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region have been locked in camps as part of a government assimilation campaign launched in response to decades of sometimes violent struggle against Chinese rule. Though officials described the camps as "boarding school-like" facilities meant to provide free job training, former detainees say they were subjected to brutal conditions, political indoctrination, beatings, and sometimes psychological and physical torture.

Under the assimilation drive, the state has forced Uighurs to undergo sterilizations and abortions, an Associated Press investigation found, and in recent months, has ordered them to drink traditional Chinese medicines to combat the coronavirus.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute researcher Nathan Ruser wrote in the report released late Thursday: "Available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang's vast 're-education' network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for coerced labor assignments."

At least 61 detention sites had undergone new construction and expansion work in a year to July 2020, the report said. These included at least 14 facilities still under construction this year.

"Of these, about 50% are higher security facilities, which may suggest a shift in usage from the lower-security, 're-education centers' toward higher-security prison-style facilities," Ruser wrote.

At least 70 facilities appeared to have lesser security by the removal of internal fencing or perimeter walls, the report said.

These included eight camps that showed signs of decommissioning, and had possibly been closed. Of the camps stripped of security infrastructure, 90% were lower security facilities, the report said.

The think tank's findings align with AP interviews with dozens of relatives and former detainees that indicate many in the camps have been sentenced in secret, extrajudicial trials and transferred to high-security prisons for things like having contact with people abroad, having too many children and studying Islam. Many others deemed less of a risk, like women or the elderly, have been transferred to a form of house arrest or forced labor in factories.

First published on September 25, 2020 / 10:10 AM

Their country their law will be the answer of many here. No need to open the mouth as deeper than ocean and higher than mountain friendship may worsen.

 

[Zapper]

Have a job and girl friend. I think you are bored.

Tell that to CBS News...and we'll say the same when you post anti-India news

 

[Constantin84]

Muslims are to occupied to be outraged over cartoons, no time to protest the extermination of their brethren in concentration camps.

 

[redtom]

One month has passed since the discussion about ASPI.Do you really not follow online news?

It seems that the area where you live is not the key propaganda target of the CIA.Today's CIA issue is the Hong Kong opposition.Please update your work plan. You are too behind schedule.Pay attention to teamwork with other CIA colleagues.

 

[TheTruth]

Hahahahaha

Oh look, it's ASPI again

China is commiting foreign policy suicide. I just failed to see what benefit china gets from this since the Uighurs are to tiny minority just numbering 9m to ever be any form of security threat.

China has truly commited a foreign policy suicide and it's image is tainted forever just like what happened to hitler before he was officially declared enemy of humanity this is where it is going

lol. They aren't persecuting Uyghurs. The US lie machine is literally making shit up out of thin air.

Calling kindergartens and apartment blocks concentration camps ...

HAHAHAHAHA

 

[beijingwalker]

Uighurs now enjoy the best standard of living by a huge margin at least in central Asia and South Asia, probably only less than a decade away to become one of the most developed regions in the world.




Persecuted Uighur kids from rural Xinjiang, my heart is bleeding for them...life is so harsh for kids born in poor families.

 

[Itachi]

Persecuted Uighur kids from rural Xinjiang, my heart is bleeding for them...life is so harsh for kids born in poor families.

Who persecuted them? The CCP?

The Uyghurs are poor because of your policies since WWII and especially under Mao. Don't go blaming the Uyghurs for their poverty.

 

[Mamluk]

One question people always avoid answering: How does anyone know these are concentration camps? Does Chinese government acknowledge them as concentration camps? All I see is just some satellite picture of walled places - it could be anything, high security prison, military or whatever.

 

[Flash_Ninja]

Muslims are to occupied to be outraged over cartoons, no time to protest the extermination of their brethren in concentration camps.

Muslim governments have visited Xinjiang several times and not reported anything particularly alarming, the only information on these "concentration camps" is via shady western think-tanks and anti-China critics.

There probably are re-education centres, but considering China is an authoritarian country its not really surprising and is probably more of a national policy than Muslim specific; and it certainly isnt a 'Muslim holocaust' no matter how much racists and idiots wish it was.

 

[SuvarnaTeja]

One question people always avoid answering: How does anyone know these are concentration camps? Does Chinese government acknowledge them as concentration camps? All I see is just some satellite picture of walled places - it could be anything, high security prison, military or whatever.

Because China confirms and never denied.


FM refutes EU Parliament’s accusation on Xinjiang
Source:Global Times Published: 2019/12/20 21:43:40
0

Artists play music in Kashi, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on June 12, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese people, especially those living in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are more qualified than those who live in Europe and have never been to Xinjiang to speak about what is really happening in the region, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson told a press conference on Friday, in response to the European Parliament's accusation on China's Xinjiang policies.

"We have reiterated our stance on the Xinjiang topic many times and released seven white papers since 2015… Xinjiang affairs are China's domestic affairs. We firmly oppose anyone, any force, who interferes in China's domestic affairs by hyping the Xinjiang topic," Geng Shuang, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry told a press conference on Friday.

A press release from the European Parliament on Thursday said MEPs "express serious concern about China's repression of the Uyghurs" and "called on the Chinese government to close" the vocational training and education centers in Xinjiang.

"We urge the European side to avoid double standards on countering terrorism and make concrete and positive efforts to promote China-EU ties," Geng said.

The spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the EU responded in a release on Friday that "Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion, but about the fight against violence, terrorism and separatism."

The spokesperson said that recently, the Chinese media released two documentaries on Xinjiang's counter-terrorism work and disclosed the terrorist group, the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement" (ETIM), was the black hand behind many terrorist attacks in China. It's a pity to see that the European Parliament showed no attention to the truth but streamed some videos that claimed terrorist activities were due to China's "oppression" of ethnic groups and smeared China's policies in Xinjiang.

These deeds were against the truth, turned white to black and made lies. They go against the morality and conscientiousness, the basic principle of international laws and relations and interfered with China's domestic affairs," said the spokesperson.

Some European politicians claimed that there are millions of trainees in the training centers. However, the spokesperson said that trainees who had been influenced by extremism graduated and they now have stable jobs and live happy lives.

Improving and developing human rights are a shared mission for every country in the world. It is confusing to see that some members of the European Parliament do not engage in serious research on how to deal with their own problems on the human rights issues of refugees, racism, violence crimes or gender discrimination, but are eager to judge and smear other countries' human rights situation, said the spokesmen.

He called on EU Parliament members to cast away bias and put more efforts to deal with their own problems.

FM refutes EU Parliament’s accusation on Xinjiang - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

 

[Mamluk]

Because China confirms and never denied.


FM refutes EU Parliament’s accusation on Xinjiang
Source:Global Times Published: 2019/12/20 21:43:40
0

Artists play music in Kashi, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on June 12, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese people, especially those living in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are more qualified than those who live in Europe and have never been to Xinjiang to speak about what is really happening in the region, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson told a press conference on Friday, in response to the European Parliament's accusation on China's Xinjiang policies.

"We have reiterated our stance on the Xinjiang topic many times and released seven white papers since 2015… Xinjiang affairs are China's domestic affairs. We firmly oppose anyone, any force, who interferes in China's domestic affairs by hyping the Xinjiang topic," Geng Shuang, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry told a press conference on Friday.

A press release from the European Parliament on Thursday said MEPs "express serious concern about China's repression of the Uyghurs" and "called on the Chinese government to close" the vocational training and education centers in Xinjiang.

"We urge the European side to avoid double standards on countering terrorism and make concrete and positive efforts to promote China-EU ties," Geng said.

The spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the EU responded in a release on Friday that "Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion, but about the fight against violence, terrorism and separatism."

The spokesperson said that recently, the Chinese media released two documentaries on Xinjiang's counter-terrorism work and disclosed the terrorist group, the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement" (ETIM), was the black hand behind many terrorist attacks in China. It's a pity to see that the European Parliament showed no attention to the truth but streamed some videos that claimed terrorist activities were due to China's "oppression" of ethnic groups and smeared China's policies in Xinjiang.

These deeds were against the truth, turned white to black and made lies. They go against the morality and conscientiousness, the basic principle of international laws and relations and interfered with China's domestic affairs," said the spokesperson.

Some European politicians claimed that there are millions of trainees in the training centers. However, the spokesperson said that trainees who had been influenced by extremism graduated and they now have stable jobs and live happy lives.

Improving and developing human rights are a shared mission for every country in the world. It is confusing to see that some members of the European Parliament do not engage in serious research on how to deal with their own problems on the human rights issues of refugees, racism, violence crimes or gender discrimination, but are eager to judge and smear other countries' human rights situation, said the spokesmen.

He called on EU Parliament members to cast away bias and put more efforts to deal with their own problems.

FM refutes EU Parliament’s accusation on Xinjiang - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

Yet another post that avoids answering those questions. Not a single mention of 'concentration camp' in your entire post.

 

[Srinivas]

Have a job and girl friend. I think you are bored.

Is this what the CCP tell you when they snatch your human rights and properties in the name of anti corruption drive?