China Human Right Record: Leaked detention camp files increase concerns about Uyghur abuses
Documents reportedly leaked from internment camps in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have raised international concerns about the human rights situation in the country.
The documents were sent to a US-based German researcher, Adrian Zenz, by an anonymous source who hacked into databases operated by the Chinese authorities.
The files apparently date from 2017 and 2018. They contain photographs allegedly taken in so-called reeducation camps in Xinjiang, lists of internees, and records of remarks made by senior Communist Party members.
A former party secretary in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, is quoted as saying that no one can escape from the camps, and he reportedly urges officials to shoot anyone who tries to flee.
China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday that this is the latest example of “the anti-China forces’ smearing of Xinjiang,” adding that “the lies and rumors they spread cannot deceive the world.”
In online talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for “a transparent investigation” of the alleged human rights abuses in the region.
China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region oversees the local authorities that are reportedly holding hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in these concentration camps as well as members of other ethnic minority groups in China, for the stated purpose of countering extremism and terrorism and promoting social integration.
China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs. Uyghur activists say they fear that the group’s culture is under threat of erasure.2 days ago
The U.S. has banned imports from China’s Xinjiang region in 2021, citing human rights abuses. President Joe Biden signed the bill that bans imports from Xinjiang and imposes sanctions on individuals responsible for forced labor in the region.
