Chilling revelations detailed in what appears to be a Chinese government surveillance report on its citizens leaked from Xinjiang.
That’s a region in western China where a mass internment policy has forced up to two million Muslims mostly from the country’s ethnic Uyghur minority into detention, CNN reported.
The documents are spreadsheets of data on more than three hundred families living in one neighborhood of Karakax County.
They provide highly detailed personal information including national ID numbers, home addresses, history of foreign travel, religious practices, and whether or not they are a threat.
The authors believed to be Chinese government officials then decide whether to keep individuals in what the Chinese government calls vocational training centers.
Beijing wants the world to believe this mass job training program is rooting out violent extremism. Still, several survivors tell CNN the reality of crowded prison-like facilities where inmates were subjected to torture.
Due to China’s crackdown and a heavy curtain of censorship independently confirming anything in Xinjiang is incredibly difficult.
On a recent visit to the region, Chinese security forces harassed and blocked CNN’s Matt Rivers from visiting the internment camps.
However, a CNN investigation tracked down Uyghurs living in exile who verified the identities of at least eight of the families profiled in the leaked report.
CNN’s data analysis reveals among at least 484 people sent to camps, five were detained because they communicated with people overseas. Twenty-five were detained for holding a passport without visiting a foreign country, and the most 114 people were labeled a threat for only having too many children.
Those Uyghur were sent to four different camps all apparently located within the same community. Using other open-source Chinese government documents, CNN was able to find the locations of the four facilities including the number two training center located near the Karakax train station.
In the past, Beijing has strenuously denied allegations of mistreatment and arbitrary detention.
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