All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
Interview: ‘We Give Them a Warning Before Ordering Them to Stand as Punishment’
An officer at a police station in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service about the conditions at a camp where he worked as a guard for 10 months. In the first part of an interview, the officer—who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal—detailed the layout of the camp, the daily routine of the detainees, and the punishments they were subjected to if they did not obey the rules.
Behind The Walls: Uyghurs Detail Their Experience in China’s Secret ‘Re-education’ Camps
RFA’s Uyghur Service recently interviewed several Uyghurs who shared details of the abuse they endured while forced to attend political indoctrination sessions, or while detained in extrajudicial prisons and in the re-education camp network.
“It was like being in hell.” Accounts of those having been in Chinese camps
An additional two Kazakhstan citizens have recounted how they were detained and forcefully placed in so-called “political re-education centers” in China.
How to Find China’s Internment Camps for Uighur Muslims - The Atlantic
Citizen journalists and scholars are in a race against time, scouring the internet for evidence of China’s massive internment system, where vast numbers of Muslims have been sent, before the Chinese government can erase it.
China Tells U.N. Rights Chief to Respect Its Sovereignty After Xinjiang Comments
China on Tuesday called for U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to respect its sovereignty, after she urged it to allow monitors into the restive far western region of Xinjiang and expressed concern about the situation there.
New UN Rights Chief Takes on China, Other Powers
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has called on China to accept observers in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In her first speech to the UN Human Rights Council called on China’s government to ease restrictions on her and her office’s team. Bachelet added that she expects discussions with Chinese officials to begin soon.
“Eradicating Ideological Viruses” - China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims
This report presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. Systemic and increasingly pervasive controls on daily life there dramatically scaled up when Chen Quanguo became Xinjiang’s Party Secretary in late 2016.
China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: Transformation
On the edge of a desert in far western China, an imposing building sits behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Inside, hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a high-pressure indoctrination program.
Muslim China and “de-extremification” campaign: Interview with Darren Byler, Living Otherwise
The Living Otherwise project, founded by a group of young experts, is actively engaged in covering what is happening with Uyghurs in China. Dr. Darren Byler, who runs the platform, offers some insight into Islamophobia in China.
Thoroughly Reforming Them Towards a Healthy Heart Attitude: China's Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang.
This paper investigates publicly available evidence of China’s political re-education facilities from official sources, including government websites, media reports and other Chinese internet sources.
China’s Protracted Securitization of Xinjiang: Origins of a Surveillance State
This article focuses on two key developments in the contemporary history of Xinjiang that help make sense of the ‘surveillance state’ as the culmination of a sustained security agenda aimed at tightening the grip of the Communist Party of China (CCP) on the region. The first is the abandonment of the moderate approach which characterized China’s ethnic minority policies in the early years of the ‘reform and opening up’ (1980s). A second key development is the issuing in 1996 of the directive ‘Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Document No. 7’. This set of instructions established a new security agenda for Xinjiang that defined the contours of much of the practices now observed in the region.
From laboratory in far west, China's surveillance state spreads quietly
Government procurement documents collected by Reuters and rare insights from officials show that surveillance technology encountered in Xinjiang is encroaching into cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the numbers behind China’s push to arm security forces with high-tech monitoring tools as the government clamps down on dissent.
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviews the report of China
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination concluded its consideration of the combined fourteenth to seventeenth periodic report of China. A great source of concern was racial discrimination in the context of laws fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, particularly against Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.
‘Everyone was silent, endlessly mute’: Former Chinese re-education instructor speaks out
It was a place of silence, forced learning and fear. It was called a “transformation centre” hidden in the mountains of far western China, bereft of any obvious sign indicating its purpose. But it looked and felt like a jail. For months, Sayragul Sauytbay worked inside, teaching Mandarin and propaganda to Muslim detainees swept up in a broad Chinese campaign to eradicate what Beijing calls extremism.
Criminal Arrests in Xinjiang Account for 21% of China’s Total in 2017
Under the pretext of “counter-terrorism,” “anti-separatism,” and “de-extremism” efforts, Chinese authorities have greatly increased the number of arrests and prosecutions in Xinjiang.
What’s the Difference between Prison, Detention Center and Reeducation Camp?
Analysis of satellite imagery reveals key identifying features that differentiate prisons and reeducation camps in Xinjiang - the former are typically larger and have higher security levels, while the latter have less sophisticated designs and are usually smaller.
Uighur children fall victim to China anti-terror drive
On a quiet street in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, a house lies empty, padlocked from the outside, the family who lived there gone. The father was detained in February; three months later the mother was also taken away by authorities. They had allegedly shared extremist Islamist content on their mobile phones, family friends said. Despite protests from relatives, two of their children, aged 18 and 15, were then detained and their younger two, aged seven and nine, were sent to a state welfare centre.
Islam in Xinjiang: “De-Extremification” or Violation of Religious Space?
The CCP claims it must halt the “penetration of extremification” within society, as outlined in the XUAR Regulations on De-extremification (2017). Yet the true aim of China’s surveillance state in Xinjiang seems rather to be to erase the religious (Islamic) identity of Uyghur communities, via a racist system of cultural cleansing. Intrusive religious policing practised in Xinjiang since 2012 has accelerated since the arrival of new Party Secretary, Chen Quanguo, in 2016.
How Should the World Respond to Intensifying Repression in Xinjiang?, A ChinaFile Conversation
Deliberate, systematic human rights abuses are happening in China’s northwest. While several U.S. lawmakers have called for sanctions, much of the world remains silent, including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which calls itself “the collective voice of the Muslim world.” What should the international community do?
China’s Uyghur Repression
In the name of combating Islamic extremism, the Chinese Communist Party has embarked on a massive campaign of harassment and detention of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.