A layer of secrecy shrouds the Chinese government’s clampdown on Muslim ethnic minorities in the region of Xinjiang. Authorities continue to deny the existence of re-education camps there and punish anyone who speaks out publicly about them. Some citizens of Kazakhstan have been detained in the crackdown, and released Kazakhs are one of the only sources of information about what is going on inside the camps.
Since 2016, the government has transformed the region into a dystopian surveillance state with cameras and checkpoints covering the cities, residents tasked with spying on their neighbors, and police throwing Uighur men into re-education camps, where they are brainwashed and tortured. Left-behind wives and mothers don’t know where their husbands and sons are held and whether they are alive.
The international community has done little to call China out on its actions: Isa noted most Muslim countries were reluctant to raise the issue with China because of their dependence on Chinese investments. Western democracies have also remained largely unconcerned, save for a few voices calling for their leaders to press President Xi Jinping on the internment of Uighurs before it escalates into an ethnic cleansing.
BORDERING KAZAKHSTAN AND MONGOLIA, Xinjiang is strategically important to China as it holds a third of the country’s natural gas and oil reserves and is situated on the historic Silk Road, which China aims to revive with its recent Belt and Road Initiative. Yet the 11 million Uighurs living in the area have long bristled at China’s heavy-handed attempts at assimilation,…
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