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:
Securing China's Northwest Frontier: Identity and Insecurity in Xinjiang
In the first study to incorporate majority Han and minority Uyghur perspectives on ethnic relations in Xinjiang following mass violence during July 2009, David Tobin analyses how official policy shapes identity and security dynamics on China's northwest frontier. He explores how the 2009 violence unfolded and how the party-state responded to ask how official identity narratives and security policies shape practices on the ground.
The War on the Uyghurs - China's campaign against Xinjiang's Muslims
This eye-opening book reveals how China has used the US-led Global War on Terror as cover for its increasingly brutal suppression of the Uyghur people, and Uyghur responses to these devastating government policies.
Uighur Muslim teacher tells of forced sterilisation in Xinjiang
A teacher coerced into giving classes in Xinjiang internment camps has described her forced sterilisation at the age of 50, under a government campaign to suppress birth rates of women from Muslim minorities. Qelbinur Sidik said the crackdown swept up not just women likely to fall pregnant, but those well beyond normal childbearing ages. Messages she got from local authorities said women aged 19 to 59 were expected to have intrauterine devices (IUDs) fitted or undergo sterilisation.
What They Saw: Ex-Prisoners Detail The Horrors Of China's Detention Camps
BuzzFeed News interviewed 28 former detainees from the camps in Xinjiang about their experiences, who wanted to make the world aware of how they were treated.
China Secretly Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Muslims
Using satellite images and interviews with former detainees, this investigation of China’s internment camp system identified more than 260 structures built since 2017.
The Spatial Cleansing of Xinjiang: Mazar Desecration in Context
Since March 2018, the Chinese state has destroyed and desecrated Uyghur historical and holy places at a scale unprecedented in the history of Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang), among them the sacred mazars.
A life story of former Chinese concentration camp teacher
On March 1, 2017 at the start of the mass imprisonment campaign of the Uyghurs led by the Chinese Communist Party, the life of a schoolteacher from an influential family was turned upside down, when she was recruited as a teacher in a “re-education camp”. She speaks about the inhuman conditions, of detention, rape, torture, forced sterilisation and the absurdity of her educational mission. Her witness account was published previously by the French newspaper Libération on 20th July.
Confessions of a Xinjiang Camp Teacher
Qelbinur Sedik reveals the horrors she witnessed in the camps, where she was forced to teach Mandarin in 2017.
WATCH: Undercover in the Most Dystopian Place in the World
A reporter poses as a tourist to gain unprecedented access to China’s Xinjiang region, where at least a million Uighurs have been detained in massive internment camps.
Addressing Forced Labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Toward a Shared Agenda
The forced labor of ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), as part of a broader pattern of severe human rights abuses, is a significant and growing concern that demands the attention of governments and private-sector actors across the world. Products entering the United States, Europe, and other democracies are at risk of being affected by these forced labor practices, which often occur several steps away from global brands in supply chains.
This brief explores what the XUAR produces, the sectors that are implicated, the resulting sourcing challenges, and the opportunities for collective action to be explored in further research.
Event: Disinformation, Propaganda and the Uyghur Crisis
To launch a new report, "The Happiest Muslims in the World": Disinformation, Propaganda and the Uyghur Crisis, UHRP has invited a panel of experts to discuss this timely issue and its implications for human rights worldwide.
The 11 Sanctioned Chinese Companies: What They Sell, And To Whom They Sell It
Another week, another round of sanctions against Chinese entities no one in the U.S. has heard of, but they have surely worn their T-shirts, opened their refrigerators, bought their yarn at Joann’s Fabrics & Crafts, or sat in a New York subway car equipped by them. The Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security announced the 11 newcomers to the Entity List on Monday, slapping sanctions on them for human rights violations, among other things. While none of these companies are household names here in the U.S., their big brand named buyers are well known.
Sterilizations, IUDs, and mandatory birth control: The CCP’s campaign to suppress Uyghur birthrates in Xinjiang
This report presents detailed analysis of another troubling aspect of state policy in Xinjiang: measures to forcibly suppress birthrates among ethnic Uyghur communities, to include the mass application of mandatory birth control and sterilizations.
“The Happiest Muslims in the World”: Disinformation, Propaganda and the Uyghur Crisis
This report analyses English-language Chinese media sources aimed at foreign audiences to examine CCP messaging strategies on the Uyghur human rights crisis.
US imposes sanctions on senior Chinese officials over Uighur abuses
The United States has imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist party, including a member of the ruling politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities in the western part of the country.
Geolocating Growth of Suspect "Boarding" Facilities in Xinjiang China
In this report, RAND identified facilities suspected of housing young children, the construction of which coincided with a publicly stated policy to build “boarding schools” in Xinjiang, alleged by researchers to board Uyghur youth as part of a policy of intergenerational separation.
Hong Kong Says Common Protest Slogan Calling for ‘Revolution’ Is Now Illegal Under National Security Law
Hong Kong declared illegal a key slogan chanted by pro-democracy protesters, as well as barring the waving of flags that advocate Xinjiang independence, the latest sign that authorities plan to use a new Beijing-drafted national security law to enforce limits on free speech.
“99 bad things”: A man’s 2-year journey through Xinjiang’s complex detention network
Three years after the start of the mass incarcerations in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, there are now dozens of eyewitness accounts testifying to the coercive, violent, and often cruel nature of Xinjiang’s “re-education initiative”. Among these, however, few are as informative, comprehensive, and detailed as Erbaqyt Otarbai’s, a Kazakh truck driver who – following a trip to Xinjiang in May 2017 – found himself caught up in the system for two full years, with the majority of the time spent in detention centers, “re-education” camps, a hospital, an improvised factory, and house arrest. His account – independently corroborated various times over by former cellmates, satellite images, and testimonies for victims that he met along the way – offers a rare and invaluable view of not only the system’s many facets but also of their evolution.
China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization
The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children. While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide.”
China's hidden partner in suppressing the Muslim Uighurs – the US
Last week, President Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act, the first US legislation to focus on the role of the US in protecting the rights of Uighurs and other indigenous Muslims inside China. On the same day, former national security adviser John Bolton revealed in an excerpt from his book that Trump had allegedly told the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, perhaps as early as 2017 and again in 2019, that he agreed with his policy of placing Muslims in mass internment camps.