All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression & Mass Imprisonment
This report explores how China’s systematic, large-scale imprisonment of Uyghurs not only amounts to a crime against humanity, but also dangerous lawfare at mass scale.
How I escaped a Chinese internment camp
Zumrat Dawut is a mother of three from Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang autonomous region in China. In 2018, she was arrested and sent to a detention facility for Uyghur women where she said she endured brutal living conditions and beatings. This comic, featuring art by Fahmida Azim, tells Zumrat's story.
“Like We Were Enemies In a War” - China’s Mass Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang
This report, based on first-hand testimonies and satellite imagery data analysis, gives an extensive account of life inside the internment camps.
“Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots” - China’s Crimes against Humanity
This report outlines the evidence for the conclusion that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity against the Turkic Muslim population.
Documenting Xinjiang’s Detention System
This database of nearly 400 suspected detention facilities in Xinjiang highlights ‘re-education’ camps, detention centres and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.
Xinjiang Detention and Cultural Sites Interactive Map
ASPI researchers have located, mapped and analysed over 380 suspected detention facilities in Xinjiang that have been built or expanded since 2017, making it the most comprehensive dataset on Xinjiang’s detention system in the world. The project has also located and analysed hundreds of mosques and other important Uyghur and Islamic cultural sites in Xinjiang and assessed how many have been demolished or damaged since 2017. Both datasets are viewable on this interactive map.
The Karakax List: Dissecting the Anatomy of Beijing’s Internment Drive in Xinjiang
The “Karakax List”, named after the county of Karakax (Qaraqash) in Hotan Prefecture, represents the most recent leaked government document from Xinjiang. Over 137 pages, 667 data rows and the personal details of over 3,000 Uyghurs, this document presents the strongest evidence to date that Beijing is actively persecuting and punishing normal practices of traditional religious beliefs, in direct violation of its own constitution.
The China Cables Investigation
China Cables is an investigation into the surveillance and mass internment without charge or trial of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang province, based on leaked classified Chinese government documents.
‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims
More than 400 pages of internal Chinese documents provide an unprecedented inside look at the crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.
Xinjiang’s Re-Education and Securitization Campaign: Evidence from Domestic Security Budgets
In August 2018, at a meeting of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the PRC flatly denied the existence of “re-education camps”, stating that they were instead “vocational education and employment training centers to acquire employment skills and legal knowledge”. But the PRC government’s own budgets appear to contradict these assertions.
Mapping Xinjiang’s Detention Camps
This November 2018 report by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre collates and adds to the current open-source research into China’s growing network of extrajudicial ‘re-education’ camps in Xinjiang province.
China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: Transformation
On the edge of a desert in far western China, an imposing building sits behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Inside, hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a high-pressure indoctrination program.
Criminal Arrests in Xinjiang Account for 21% of China’s Total in 2017
Under the pretext of “counter-terrorism,” “anti-separatism,” and “de-extremism” efforts, Chinese authorities have greatly increased the number of arrests and prosecutions in Xinjiang.
Free Xinjiang ‘Political Education’ Detainees - Muslim Minorities Held for Months in Unlawful Facilities
The Chinese government should immediately free people held in unlawful “political education” centers in Xinjiang and shut them down, Human Rights Watch said today. Since about April 2017, the authorities have forcibly detained thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities at these centers, where they are subjected to propaganda promoting Chinese identity.