{"id":4608,"date":"2018-11-27T19:44:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T19:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/27\/china-has-detained-million-muslims-reeducation-camps\/"},"modified":"2018-11-27T19:44:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T19:44:30","slug":"china-has-detained-million-muslims-reeducation-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-has-detained-million-muslims-reeducation-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"China Has Detained a Million Muslims in Reeducation Camps"},"content":{"rendered":"

L<\/span>ast February, after nearly four months of interrogations and being forced to sit through lectures extolling the greatness of the Chinese Communist Party, Khayrat Samarkand tried to kill himself in the cell he shared with a dozen other men. \u201cI threw myself at the wall and hit my head repeatedly on it until the guards came,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samarkand\u2019s injuries were so severe that after a day of treatment in a hospital, the guards simply let him walk out. He crossed the border into Kazakhstan, one of a handful of witnesses to the mass detention of Muslim ethnic minorities in China\u2019s western Xinjiang region.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said this August that at least 1 million Muslims\u2014ethnic Uyghurs and other minorities\u2014in Xinjiang were being \u201cheld incommunicado\u2026without being charged or tried, under the pretext of countering terrorism and religious extremism.\u201d In massive camps called \u201c<\/span>reeducation<\/span>\u201d centers, detainees are subjected to round-the-clock surveillance and attend classes where they are coerced into shedding traditional Islamic practices like praying, wearing a headscarf, growing a beard, or abstaining from pork and alcohol.<\/span><\/p>\n