What began as political unrest in Xinjiang, China, has now evolved into a widespread campaign by the Chinese government meant to suppress and erase the Uighur population. In recent years, mounting evidence has surfaced that China has forcibly detained at least a million Uighurs, practically 10% of the total Uighur population, in modern-day concentration camps.
Who are the Uighur people?
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic minority group living mostly in the Xinjiang region of northwest China. Most Uighurs identify as culturally and ethnically Central Asian, with their own dialects and economy based on agriculture and trade.
Although an “autonomous region,” Xinjiang has operated under Chinese control since its annexation in 1949. For decades, the estimated 11 million Uighurs have faced increasing oppression as the Chinese government cracks down on Uighur culture, language, and religion.
Government policies intensified with Xinjiang economic protests in the 1990s, and large numbers of Han Chinese were encouraged to move into the region. In 2014, President Xi Jinping declared the “People’s War on Terror” to combat the rise of Islamic extremism after bombs were discovered to have been set off by Uighur militants. However, the threat of violence was exaggerated and used to justify widespread, state-sanctioned injustice against all Uighur people, including a ban in 2014 of Ramadan fasting, long beards, and head coverings, as well as the destruction of mosques and increased surveillance.
What’s happening now in Xinjiang?
Human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Beijing of mass imprisonment and torture, and a recent Foreign Policy report says that China’s actions against the Uighurs should be formally recognized by the United Nations as genocide.
China initially denied these claims, saying that new policies were meant only to curtail Uighur militarism and that Uighurs in Xinjiang enjoyed the same privileges and rights as other ethnic groups. However, new reports, leaked documents, and video footage make China’s abuses undeniable.
Satellite images depict prison-like camps with watch towers and barbed wire fences. Within these walls, Uighurs face forced political indoctrination and are subject to food deprivation, solitary confinement, forced medication, sexual assault, beatings, and torture, according to a 2018 report by the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination and 2018 Amnesty International report. Drone footage shows Uighur prisoners shaved, blindfolded, and shackled, kneeling and then being herded by soldiers onto trains. (Australian security services authenticated the video after Chinese ambassador to the U.K. Liu Xiaoming argued that it was fake.)
With data collected from mass surveillance technology, China issued interrogation and detention warrants for tens of thousands in only one week. China’s Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) surveillance app targeting Uighurs and other ethnic minorities revealed that in June of 2017 alone, 24,612 people in southern Xinjiang were reported as “suspicious,” with 15,683 sent to “education and training” centers, 706 to prison, and 2,096 put under house arrest.
This mass detention is often used as a threat and punishment for failure to comply with Chinese child policies for the Uighur people. While Han Chinese are encouraged to have more children, hundreds of thousands of Uighur women face mass sterilization and forced contraception — forced pregnancy checks, intrauterine devices, and abortion.
“While sterilization rates plunged in the rest of the country, they surged seven-fold in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2018, to more than 60,000 procedures. The Uighur-majority city of Hotan budgeted for 14,872 sterilizations in 2019 — over 34% of all married women of childbearing age,” said a recent Associated Press report. From 2015 to 2018, Uighur birth rates fell by over 60%. Last year, they dropped by 24%, compared to 4.2% nationwide.
Uighur families face exorbitant fines for having three or more children. Police raid homes for hidden children, and if fines cannot be paid, families face separation and detention.
Uighurs held in the detention camps also serve as a source of forced labor in dozens of factories with inhumane conditions. Xinjiang produces 84% of China’s cotton and contributes significantly to the nation’s yarn and textile production. With 33% of U.S. apparel being imported from China, it is highly likely that the supply chains of many of our major brands involve Uighur forced labor. In fact, companies like Walmart, Kmart, Uniqlo, and Muji have already been linked to Xinjiang factories. Just this month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 13 tons of human hair products suspected to have come from imprisoned Uighurs.
How has China responded?
China continues to deny accusations of human rights violations, insisting that Uighur militarism poses a real threat and that Xinjiang camps are merely “vocational training centers” and “boarding schools” to teach Chinese language and job skills. Xinjiang activities are China’s “internal affairs,” according to China’s foreign minister, so no outside investigations are allowed.
However, government documents leaked in 2019 reveal that Xinjiang detention centers are in fact part of a deliberate strategy to repress the Uighur people.
What are we doing about it?
Although Chinese oppression of Uighur people has continued for years, it seems that the Western world is only now waking up to the reality of these horrific human rights abuses.
In 2019, the U.S. led over 30 countries in condemning China’s “horrific campaign of repression” at the UN General Assembly. Other UN officials then demanded access to the camps, and the European Union called for change in Xinjiang. The U.S. has also imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials suspected to be involved in Uighur detention, blacklisted over 30 Chinese companies linked to Xinjiang abuses, and imposed sanctions on certain Chinese officials and entities.
Human rights groups continue to urge brands including Adidas and Amazon to cut ties with Xinjiang factories, and activists call for the U.S. to publicly challenge President Xi Jinping, pressure China to allow external investigations, and grant asylum to Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang.
What more can we do?
The Uyghur Human Rights Project offers several suggestions for individuals to take action:
- Help raise public awareness about the Uighur people
- Contact your representatives, urging them to continue supporting legislation countering China morally
- Contact companies with sourcing in Xinjiang, urging them to evaluate their supply chains and cease operations in the area
- Follow and support organizations addressing the issue
- Uyghur Human Rights Project
- Save Uighur
- Human Rights Watch
- The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region
To learn more about the Uighurs and the situation in Xinjiang:
- Uyghur Human Rights Project
- China’s mass indoctrination camps evoke Cultural Revolution (Associated Press, 2018)
- “Absolutely no mercy”: Leaked files expose how China organized mass detentions of Muslims (New York Times, 2019)
- Secret documents reveal how China mass detention camps work (Associated Press, 2019)
- China suppression of Uighur minorities meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says (NPR, 2020)
- China is systematically detaining Uighurs — and the world isn’t doing enough about it (Vox, 2020)
- China’s repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang (Council on Foreign Relations, 2020)
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- What You Should Know About the Uighur Human Rights Crisis - July 28, 2020
- “Slacktivist” to activist - July 13, 2020