China's hidden camps What's happened to the vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang?
“They want to delete Uighur identity”
China is accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Muslims without trial in its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. Now a BBC investigation has found important new evidence of the reality.
China is accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Muslims without trial in its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. Now a BBC investigation has found important new evidence of the reality.
On 12 July 2015 a
satellite swung over the rolling deserts and oasis cities of China's vast far
west. One of the images it captured that day just shows a patch of empty,
untouched, ashen-grey sand. It seems an unlikely place to start an
investigation into one of the most pressing human rights concerns of our age. But less than three
years later, on 22 April 2018, a satellite photo of that same piece of desert
showed something new. A massive, highly secure compound had materialised. It is
enclosed with a 2km-long exterior wall punctuated by 16 guard towers. The first reports that China was operating a system of internment camps for Muslims in Xinjiang began to emerge last year.
The satellite photograph was discovered by researchers looking for evidence of that system on the global mapping software, Google Earth. It places the site just outside the small town of Dabancheng, about an hour's drive from the provincial capital, Urumqi... read more
and see photos:
