A leak of files attributed to Chinese police, including thousands of photos of detainees including women, minors and the elderly, has shed much light on the plight of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
These documents were published on Tuesday by a group of 14 international media, including the French daily The worldwhile the High Commissioner for Human Rights ofUNMichelle Bachelet, has begun a long-awaited visit to this vast region of northwest China.
They were provided by an anonymous source to German researcher Adrian Zenz, the first to accuse the Chinese regime in 2018 of interning more than a million Uighurs in political re-education centers.
Beijing has always rejected this figure, attacked the lie of the century and claims these sites are in fact vocational training centers intended to deradicalize people tempted by Islamism or separatism, after a series of attacks that have bloodied the region.
But documents published on Tuesday tend to prove the presence of interns in these centers are not voluntary. they rip off the veneer of China’s propagandaMr Zenz told the BBC.
More than 2,800 mugshots of the detainees included Zeytunigul Ablehet, a 17-year-old girl arrested for listening to a banned speech, and 16-year-old Bilal Qasim, who was apparently convicted for his connections with other prisoners.
A haggard and skinny woman named Anihan Hamit, 73 at the time of her arrest, is the oldest on the list.
Another photo shows guards armed with batons restraining a chained prisoner.
Written documents support the idea of an orderly repression from China’s top state.
A speech attributed to Police Minister Zhao Kezhi in 2018 explains that President Xi Jinping has ordered the expansion of detention centers.
According to Zhao, it is believed that there are at least 2 million people in southern Xinjiang seriously influenced by the entry of extremist thought.
Uighurs make up almost the majority of Xinjiang’s population (26 million inhabitants).
In a speech in 2017, Chen Quanguo, then boss of the area, ordered the guards to shoot anyone who tried to flee and closely monitor believers.
Beijing has quietly denied Adrian Zenz’s findings.
Only them latest example of Xinjiang bashing carried out by anti-China forcescriticized Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, on Tuesday.
Source: Radio-Canada
