CHINESE PRESIDENT XI JINping's crackdown on the "disease of separatism encouraged officials in the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang to sweep up as many detainees as possible for internment camps, where they faced what the U.S. has described as genocide.
Officials in the northwestern region, hoping to satisfy their leader's drive for Draconian "reforms," were Incentivized to intensify the policy of repression, which escalated from "thought eradication" to mass internment, reeducation and sterilization under the guise of combating extremism, according to a recent report.
The report, based on files obtained from the Xinjiang Police Security Bureau and other local security sources, was released by China-sanctioned German anthropologist Adrian Zenz-a leading researcher on the topic whose past work shed light on the internment of an estimated 1 million or more Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the regionofficially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region-since 2017.
The camps were part of Xi's "medicine" for the "disease" of separatism. Detainees in the facilities, which Beijing has called "vocational education and training centers," were subject to extreme neglect, torture, forced sterilization and rape, according to the U.S., in what both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump's administrations characterized as a genocide. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told Newsweek they were "schools" and compared them to Western anti-terrorism programs.
Zenz said the groundwork for the campaign to crush perceived extremism was in place before Xi declared a "people's war on terror" in 2014. "The conceptual foundation for targeting wider populations for de-extremification had been laid; in 2014-16 officials trialed increasingly concentrated and centralized 'thought eradication' mechanisms; then in 2017 these were scaled into a mass internment campaign," Zenz wrote.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Can Alternative Therapies Treat Cancer?
Doctor and breast cancer survivor Liz O'Riordan addresses misinformation around managing the disease
Falling for Romance
A new book, Nora Ephron at the Movies, celebrates the writer/director best known for her iconic rom-coms and strong female characters
Cracking the Norse Code
Walrus DNA has shown that Vikings were likely the first to have encountered Indigenous North Americans
Monumental Shift
The discovery of 165-million-year-old crystals Easter Island has upended the longheld notion of how the Earth's \"conveyor belt\" moves
'OUR FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC REFORMS ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN'
It is a well-known fact across the globe that the North Korean regime is irrational and unpredictable, but we have been consistent in strengthening our defense posture against the threat from North Korea since the Korean War, and I believe that their conventional capability is much inferior to that of the Korean military.
'They Read My Eulogy As I Lay in an Open Grave'
Like Paris Hilton, Natasia Pelowski claims she was subjected to abuse at a teenage therapy program
Russian Economy Faces 'Burnout
Vladimir Putin admits difficulties” as the country’s key interest rate reaches a historic high
China's 'Silent Chemical War'
The U.S. must investigate Beijing's role in the manufacturing of fentanyl that is killing Americans, says one mom whose daughter died after accidentally taking the illicit substance
HARSH HEADWINDS
President Yoon Suk Yeol's BATTLE to reform a South Korea beset with structural problems under the specter of an increasingly aggressive neighbor to THE NORTH
Bridget Everett
BRIDGET EVERETT NEVER THOUGHT SHE'D BE THE LEAD OF A TV SHOW. \"I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don't happen, you don't find yourself with three seasons of HBO.
