Two days ago the BBC reported”“…inside China's vast and secretive system of internment camps in the Xinjiang region. According to independent estimates, more than a million men and women have been detained in the sprawling network of camps, which China says exist for the ‘re-education’ of the Uighurs and other minorities.
Human rights groups say the Chinese government has gradually stripped away the religious and other freedoms of the Uighurs, culminating in an oppressive system of mass surveillance, detention, indoctrination, and even forced sterilization.
The policy flows from China's President, Xi Jinping, who visited Xinjiang in 2014 in the wake of a terror attack by Uighur separatists. Shortly after, according to documents leaked to the New York Times, he directed local officials to respond with ‘absolutely no mercy’. The US government said last month that China's actions since amounted to a genocide. China says reports of mass detention and forced sterilization are ‘lies and absurd allegations’.
First-hand accounts from inside the internment camps are rare, but several former detainees and a guard have told the BBC they experienced or saw evidence of an organized system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture.”
You can read the full article here “‘Their goal is to destroy everyone': Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape.” Trigger warning! Extremely graphic accounts of rape and torture are depicted in this article. This is a human rights crisis. This is genocide.
The forthcoming P4J series will raise funds for the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
The scans above are items I saved from my trip to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in 2015.
This recording is of a group of musicians who played music for me at their home, in Turpan, on the last evening of Ramadan.
As-salamu alaykum : "Peace be upon you"
