The Uyghurs

In its far western region of Xinjiang, China says it’s fighting separatism and religious extremism among Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group. To some outsiders, it’s building a 21st-century gulag, combining police-state repression backed by high-tech facial-recognition systems with old-fashioned internment camps and re-education techniques culled from the Cultural Revolution. A United Nations assessment said anywhere from tens of thousands to “upwards of 1 million” Uyghurs have been detained. As the scale of the crackdown has become clearer, the international outcry has grown, with the U.S. accusing China of committing genocide.

The number and size of the camps has expanded rapidly since 2016 — one analysis based on satellite imagery puts the tally at about 380. Chinese authorities call them “voluntary education centers” to purge “ideological diseases.” Foreign news outlets and human rights groups have reported physical and psychological abuse on a massive scale, with Uyghur citizens in the camps forced to disavow their Islamic beliefs, praise the Communist Party and endure solitary confinement. Documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed instructions from top officials on how the camps should be run as high-security prisons, with strict discipline, punishments and no escapes. While China says it’s been closing camps as people “graduate,” rights groups say those who are released face continued oppression while others have been charged and moved to higher-security facilities. The Uyghur population is under intense surveillance, with residents having to submit to facial scans when entering markets or fuel stations. Officials have banned “abnormal beards,” religious names for children and observing the traditional day-time fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The analysis using satellite imagery estimated that 35% of mosques have been demolished and a further 30% damaged in some way. Xinjiang lies at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s flagship project to boost trade between east and west, and the government is spending vast sums building up cities and transport links along it.