{"id":4345,"date":"2018-10-31T18:20:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/31\/china-breaks-silence-muslim-detention-camps-calling-them-humane-image\/"},"modified":"2018-10-31T18:20:34","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:20:34","slug":"china-breaks-silence-muslim-detention-camps-calling-them-humane-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-breaks-silence-muslim-detention-camps-calling-them-humane-image\/","title":{"rendered":"China Breaks Silence on Muslim Detention Camps, Calling Them \u2018Humane\u2019 Image"},"content":{"rendered":"
BEIJING \u2014 Under mounting international criticism, China has given its most extensive defense yet of its sweeping campaign to detain and indoctrinate Muslims, with a senior official on Tuesday describing its network of camps in the far west as humane job-training centers.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Rights groups, American lawmakers and a United Nations panel have assailed the \u201ctransformation through education\u201d camps holding Uighurs and members of other Muslim minority groups in China\u2019s far northwestern Xinjiang region. Hundreds of thousands have been held in the camps \u2014 one estimate says a million \u2014 and former inmates who have fled abroad have described them as virtual prisons that engage in harsh brainwashing.<\/span><\/div>\n
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But the chairman of Xinjiang\u2019s government, Shohrat Zakir, himself an ethnic Uighur, called the camps a \u201chumane\u201d and lawful shield against terrorism in an interview published by China\u2019s official Xinhua news agency. He said the facilities gave Uighurs and other Muslims courses in the Chinese language and taught them to be law-abiding citizens. They also receive training in job skills such as making clothes, e-commerce, hairdressing <\/span>and<\/span><\/span> cosmetology, Mr. Zakir said.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mr. Zakir said that \u201cstudents\u201d in the facilities were provided with free meals, air-conditioned dormitories, movie screenings and access to computer rooms.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cXinjiang has launched a vocational education and training program according to the law,\u201d Mr. Zakir said. \u201cIts purpose is to get rid of the environment and soil that breeds terrorism and religious extremism.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mr. Zakir did not say how many Muslims had been sent to the camps, but he appeared to acknowledge for the first time that people were being held against their will in the facilities for months or years at a time.<\/span><\/div>\n
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He said the program dealt with people suspected of wrongdoing that fell short of requiring criminal convictions, and that they received \u201cgraduation certificates\u201d only after signing agreements and meeting certain criteria. Some detainees, he said, were being prepared for release and assignment to jobs at the end of 2018.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Details from the Xinhua report on #<\/span>Xinjiang :<\/span> ‘The cafeteria prepares nutritious free diets, and the dormitories are fully equipped with radio, TV, air con, bathroom and shower.\/\/ Various activities such as contests on speech, writing, dancing, singing <\/span>and<\/span><\/span> sports are organized.’ https:\/\/t.co\/BlaUufRj7K<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2014 Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) October 16, 2018<\/span><\/div>\n
Mr. Zakir suggested the campaign would continue for many years. The \u201cderadicalization\u201d program is showing results, he said, \u201cbut the duration, complexity <\/span>and<\/span><\/span> intensity remain acute, and we must maintain high vigilance.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Omurbek Eli, a businessman who has described his time held in a camp in 2017, scoffed at Mr. Zakir\u2019s description of the indoctrination centers as \u201ccolorful\u201d places where students play basketball, watch movies and join in singing contests. His experience, he said, was far harsher, involving long days of marching, singing patriotic Chinese songs and memorizing Chinese laws.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThey\u2019re full of nonsense,\u201d Mr. Eli, who is originally from Xinjiang and obtained Kazakh citizenship, said by telephone. \u201cThey say that these camps are to eradicate terrorism, but inside I saw lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, even officials who had nothing to do with extremism,\u201d he said. \u201cThey call these vocational training centers, but it was really a prison.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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The publication of the interview with Mr. Zakir confirmed a shift in China\u2019s public relations strategy over the camps, from silence to an unapologetic defense. Mr. Zakir even cited a United Nations resolution on fighting terrorism to justify them.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As criticism of the detentions grew throughout this year, the government first stayed silent. Then it gave sparing acknowledgments of the camps\u2019 existence. Appearing before a United Nations panel in Geneva in August, a senior official in the Chinese delegation defended the government\u2019s measures yet denied that they amounted to mass detention.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The chairman of Xinjiang\u2019s government, Shohrat Zakir, in Beijing in March. Mr. Zakir called the detainment camps a lawful defense against terrorism.CreditAijaz Rahi\/Associated Press<\/span><\/div>\n
But Mr. Zakir\u2019s comments marked the first full-throated defense of the indoctrination program, which grew out of policies launched by Xi Jinping, China\u2019s president <\/span>and<\/span><\/span> Communist Party chief.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last week, the Xinjiang government issued amended rules for its \u201cderadicalization\u201d program that for the first time gave clear public authorization for the indoctrination camps.<\/span><\/div>\n
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On Tuesday evening, China\u2019s main state television network, CCTV, broadcast a current affairs program in prime time that praised the camps and depicted them as caring, happy places. It showed a class of Uighur students reading out a Chinese lesson titled, \u201cI am a law-abiding citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cAfter a year plus of denial, the Communist Party has decided to get out in front of the story, and put forward its own view over the legality and the nature of these detention camps,\u201d James Leibold, an expert on Xinjiang at La Trobe University in Australia, said by email. \u201cThe party\u2019s central leadership now seems determined to \u2018standardize\u2019 and \u2018legalize\u2019 their approach.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mr. Zakir\u2019s comments appeared to be part of China\u2019s preparations for an international meeting that could put the camps under further scrutiny. At a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in early November, foreign governments will have a chance to question officials from Beijing about the detention program and other intrusive security measures affecting Muslim minorities.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThis meeting is a very important occasion to raise the camp issue,\u201d Dolkun Isa, the president of the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group based in Germany, said by telephone. (Uyghur is an alternative spelling of Uighur.) \u201cChina has denied the camps, but now it\u2019s something that they just cannot hide.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Western governments have indicated that Xinjiang will be a priority at the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cWe are deeply concerned by credible reports pointing to a serious deterioration of the human rights situation\u201d in Xinjiang, Federica Mogherini, the European Union\u2019s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, told the European Parliament earlier this month.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last week, a bipartisan panel in Washington issued a report condemning the indoctrination camps. Lawmakers on the panel, including Senator Marco Rubio, proposed legislation that would punish China for the detention program.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cIn China, the government is engaged in the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities that is straight out of George Orwell,\u201d Nikki Haley, who recently announced that she was stepping down as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday, according to Fox News. \u201cIt is the largest internment of civilians in the world today.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cIt is the largest internment of civilians in the world today \u2013 it may be the largest since World War II,\u201d she added, referring to Uyghur camps. https:\/\/t.co\/7JtX7hFoAh<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2014 Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) October 16, 2018<\/span><\/div>\n
But Mr. Zakir\u2019s account indicated that China would maintain that the camps have strong backing in law. Up until 2014, China was beset by a string of violent attacks and riots involving discontented Uighurs.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cNow Xinjiang is not only beautiful,\u201d Mr. Zakir said, \u201cit\u2019s also very safe and stable.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Still, Chinese officials have not given foreign diplomats or journalists access to the camps, nor have they said how many people they hold. Hu Xijin, a prominent editor of Global Times, a brashly nationalist Chinese newspaper, said on Monday that he knew the number, and denied it was a million.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I have learned the number of people who are receiving de-extremism education at vocational training centers in Xinjiang. I am not authorized to disclose this figure. All I can say is that it is much fewer than \u201c1 million or so\u201d speculated by the outside world.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2014 Hu Xijin \u80e1\u9521\u8fdb (@HuXijin_GT) October 15, 2018<\/span><\/div>\n
Rights groups said the existence of the camps exemplified the Communist Party\u2019s use of legal justifications as a sweeping cloak for measures that betray China\u2019s own guarantees of rights and procedural protections, as well as international law.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe Xinjiang authorities\u2019 clumsy justifications for these camps only serve to illustrate what \u2018the rule of law\u2019 in China means,\u201d said Maya Wang, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe party bends it to its will and uses it as a weapon against perceived political enemies.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Source: The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING \u2014 Under mounting international criticism, China has given its most extensive defense yet of its sweeping campaign to detain and indoctrinate Muslims, with a senior official on Tuesday describing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4345"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}