In 2014, President Xi Jinping made a series of secret speeches during his visit to Xinjiang warning Chinese officials of the “toxicity of religious extremism” and proposed the idea of eliminating Islamic extremism. Three years later, came the Xinjiang Re-education camps.
The Xinjiang Re-education camps, officially known as Vocational Education and Training Centers, are essentially concentration camps that aim to ‘convert’ the Uighur people- That’s putting it lightly. In reality, these camps are operated outside of the legal system by the Chinese government where the citizens who are forced into these facilities endure horrendous physical and psychological abuse from the jailers.
Since 2017, there has been an estimated number of 800,000 to 2 million Muslims, primarily Uighurs, who are ethnically Turkic Muslims based in NW China being detained in these camps. According to local authorities, they are holding hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in these camps along with members of other ethnic minority groups for the purpose of ‘countering extremism and terrorism’, despite the majority of detainees reporting that they had been interned without trial or charges placed against them. The ridiculous justifications used to throw these innocent citizens into the internment camps include; travelling to or contacting people from countries China considers ‘’sensitive’ such as Turkey and Afghanistan, attending services at mosques, having more than three children, however, most of the time, the only crime they have committed is being Muslim.
Although the public's knowledge of what occurs in the camps is limited, we have been given some insight into what detainees have had to endure through escaped survivors and leaked footage spread via social media. According to recounts of those who were held in custody, they were forced to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party of China (CCP) and renounce Islam, eat pork and were subjected to torture, sexual abuse, abortion and have other contraceptives implanted against their will, among the few forms of abuse they’ve had to endure.
It is important to note that throughout this entire ordeal, Children are not spared. Children whose parents are detained do not get returned to relatives, but are instead thrown into state welfare institutions and boarding schools in Xinjiang without their families consent. Many families who have since been released from these camps have described having no contact with their children, nor do they know where they are. As many may have guessed, this goes against the UN Convention on the Rights of the child, something that China approved in 1992. The Convention recognizes the family as the natural environment for the growth and wellbeing of a child. This ensures that the government does not separate the children from their parents against their will, “except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child.” This is often acted on in instances of parental abuse or negligence, something the Uighur are clearly not at fault off.
While the nation's usage of IUDs and sterilisation has decreased significantly in recent years, numbers have spiked in Xinjiang. In recent weeks, It has been revealed that the Chinese Government has been and are planning to increase the number of forced abortions, IUDs and sterilisation among Uighurs and other minorities being held in the camps as an attempt to wipe out the Muslim population in the country. This is classified as a demographic genocide.
Adrian Zenz, a Xinjiang analyst, has since spoken up telling ABC, “You have the largest incarceration of an ethnic group, basically since the Holocaust.” In case everyone didn’t already know, the holocaust was the mass murder of over six millions Jews, as well as, Romas, homosexuals, disabled people and more, during the German Nazi regime. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the regime believed Jews to be an inferior race and a threat to German racial purity and therefore must be wiped out. They were thrown into concentration camps, forced to perform labour and had horrendous experiments subjected to them before being murdered. It manifested from a simple hatred towards a religion into something unthinkable.
Sound familiar?
In July of 2019, the UN Human Rights Council was sent a letter signed by 22 countries, primarily European regarding the disturbing reports of large scale arbitrary detentions of Uighurs” and calling for China to end its “mass arbitrary detentions and related violations.” Unfortunately, four days later, 37 countries came to China’s defence for their ‘remarkable achievements in the field of human rights” and protecting the nation from “terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.” What was most disappointing about the countries backing China, however, is that it included signatures from Saudia Arabia, Egypt and Qatar, all predominantly Muslim countries.
Later that year during the September United Nations conference, China was put under scrutinisation by
over two dozen countries for their “horrific campaign of repression” against its Uighur Muslims minority. The event was co-sponsored by Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and was joined by over 30 UN states, representatives of the EU, over 20 independent organisations and most importantly, Uighur survivors. Throughout the year, UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet has repeatedly pushed for China to grant the UN ‘unfettered access’ to investigate the reports of disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly of Muslims in Xinjiang.
Michelle Bachelet was expected to visit China this year for said inspection, however, COVID 19 has seemingly put that on hold. In an environment with already incredibly poor conditions, we can only imagine how the prisoners have been affected by the Coronavirus.
China’s unlawful detaining of innocent citizens based off of nothing but their religion goes against every human right we stand for and is exactly how the holocaust began. It is our duty as the public to raise awareness, advocate and fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. It is our duty to shut down these inhumane internment camps and most importantly, it is up to us to prevent another genocide from occurring right under our noses.
Written by: Linh Dang
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