12, Oct 2018

China’s western Xinjiang region has now legitimised “vocational training centres” for Muslim Uighurs, BBC News reported. Xinjiang said that the centres would address extremism by employing “thought transformation”. However, human rights organisations, who have denounced this development, have said that detainees are required to pledge loyalty to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and to criticise or abandon their religion. In August, China refuted accusations that it had incarcerated one million people, but Chinese officials present at a United Nations human rights meeting acknowledged that Uighurs who had been “deceived by religious extremism” were being re-educated and resettled. China has attributed violence in Xinjiang to Islamist militants and separatists, BBC News said. The new legislation, per BBC News, “says examples of behaviour that could lead to detention include expanding the concept of halal – which means permissible in Islam – to areas of life outside diet, refusing to watch state TV and listen to state radio and preventing children from receiving state education.” Those formerly detained at the camps spoke to BBC regarding psychological and physical torture in the camps, and said that whole families had disappeared.