China appears to be expanding its network of secret detention centres in Xinjiang, where predominantly Muslim minorities are being targeted by a forced assimilation crusade, and more and more comforts are like prisons, an Australian panel of experts has discovered. It used satellite photographs and official structure tender documents to map more than 380 suspected detention centres in the far northwest, highlighting the detention camps, detention centres and prisons that have recently been built or expanded since 2017.
Today, ASPI is launching “The Xinjiang Data Project” mapping Xinjiang’s detention formula with 380 sites from alleged re-education camps, detention centers and prisons that have expanded or expanded since 2017. See interactive map ➡️ https://t. co/ iykruAT4PP pic. twitter. com/xpNphYlhwI
The report is based on evidence that China has replaced the policy of the detention of Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in makeshift public buildings to the structure of permanent mass detention centres.
This is despite the fact that China’s official news firm Xinhua reported last year that “apprentices” who attend “professional schools and schools” to deradicalize them had all “graduated. “
The president of the regional government, Shohrat Zakir, was quoted as saying that foreign media reports had been produced on 1 or 2 million people attending these centres, but did not provide figures.
On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin edested the report as “purely incorrect information and slander,” and said the Australian institute “has no educational credibility. “China does not function “in so-called detention camps” in Xinjiang, Wang told reporters. at a press conference.
Citing media reports and surveys, Wang said one of the report’s sites was known as an electronics production park and another as a five-star residential complex.
“We also hope that all sectors can distinguish the fact from the lie and in combination resist those absurd claims invented through anti-Chinese institutions,” Wang said.
Predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region have been locked up in camps as part of a government assimilation crusade introduced in reaction to decades of violent struggle opposed to Chinese rule, although officials have described the camps as boarding school-level amenities designed to provide flexible vocational training. , former detainees claim to have been subjected to brutal conditions, political indoctrination, beatings and physical and mental torture.
As a component of the assimilation campaign, the state has forced Uighurs to undergo sterilizations and abortions, according to Research by the Associated Press, and in recent months has ordered them to drink classic Chinese drugs to combat coronavirus.
Australian Institute of Strategic Policy researcher Nathan Ruser wrote in the report published Thursday night: “Evidence suggests that many detainees outside the courts in Xinjiang’s vast “re-education” network paintings are now officially charged and locked up in superior security facilities. , adding newly built or enlarged prisons, or sent to walled factory complexes for forced painting. “
According to the report, at least 61 detention sites were rebuilt and expanded in a year until July 2020, including at least 14 services that are still structured this year.
“Of these, about 50% are higher security institutions, possibly recommending a replacement in the use of lower-security ‘rehabilitation centers’ by higher-security prison-type facilities,” Ruser wrote.
At least 70 amenities gave the impression of having less security through internal fences or perimeter walls, according to the report.
These included 8 camps showing symptoms of dismantling and possibly had been closed. Of the camps stripped of any security infrastructure, 90% were less secure facilities, according to the report.
The expert group’s findings are consistent with interviews by the Palestinian Authority with dozens of family members and detained modelers involving that many in the camps have been convicted in secret extrajudicial trials and transferred to high-security prisons for things like having contact with others abroad, having too many young people, and reading Islam. Many less risky ones, such as women or the elderly, have been transferred to some form of space arrest or forced labour in factories.