China's Re-education Centres
"Efforts are made [in Xinjiang] to fight terrorist extremism in accordance with law."
"Human rights are also seriously protected. There is no such problem as arbitrary detention."
"Vocational skills training [centres are aimed at preventing Muslims from becoming terrorists]."
Beijing statement, UN meeting on human rights
"[Government bids] call for spiked clubs and cattle prods -- all kinds of things that you wouldn't expect for a vocational training centre."
"There's also the obvious evidence that you don't need to train people in their 80s with vocational skills, or university presidents [and] other kinds of cultural elites who have been swept up."
Rian Thum, Xinjiang historian, University of Nottingham
"It's not as they have said, telling to the world that they are great, merciful, clever and strategic by educating and teaching skills to all these people."
"I didn't learn any skills there -- it's all not true."
"[After refusing instructions, an iron suit was forced on him that stretched his limbs out] After that, I was the most obedient person. It was so painful."
Kairat Samarkan, 30 former inmate
"[Inside], it was not somewhere humans could stay. In there, one minute felt like one year."
"I hate China. I hate the Communist Party."
Amina, former inmate
"It wasn't their choice [guards of the same ethnicity] ... they were obeying the Chinese government [who had ethnic Kazakhs watched over by Kazakh guards]."
"It looked like a prison. Everything was iron. You're asking yourself -- why am I here? What have I done to end up here?"
Yerzhan, former inmate
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| A person wearing a blue mask with tears of blood takes part in a protest march of ethnic Uighurs asking for the European Union to call upon China to respect human rights in the Chinese Xinjiang region and ask for the closure of “re-education centre” where Uighurs are detained, during a demonstration around the EU institutions in Brussels on April 27, 2018. |
Noon renders a portion of rice and at 6 p.m. the ritual of praising Chinese President Xi Jinping echoes as all the inmates shout "Long live Xi Jinping!". A cattle prod helps convince any who refuse in the internment camps situated in the province of Xinjiang as described by eight former detainees whose testimony provides a current idea of conditions in camps which, according to UN estimates, hold something like a million Uighur Muslims and Kazakhs.
Upon their release in January most of the former inmates made their way to Kazakhstan where they remain and have agreed to being interviewed with the stipulation their names be withheld in the interests of shielding relatives in China from retaliation. Beijing 'legalized' those internment camps, describing them as voluntary 'vocational skills training' centres, which hasn't convinced anyone critical of the crude human rights abuses China employs.
Yerzhan had committed the crime of using WhatsApp, blocked in China. As for Amina who had been an inmate of a female facility, she had committed the offense of travelling abroad in Kazakhstan and choosing to study there. Her stay had her witness guards bursting into cells at night, placing black hoods over women's heads, to take them away. One woman returned in the morning, weeping, but one morning she failed to return and was never again seen.
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| Ethnic Uighurs take part in a protest march asking for the European Union to call upon China to respect human rights in the Chinese Xinjiang region and asking for the closure of “re-education centre” where some Uighurs are detained, during a demonstration around the EU institutions in Brussels on April 27, 2018. |
"[The Chinese government is] trying to align reality, at least to a certain degree on the surface, to this story that they are crafting."Pretense at normalcy is critical, while also clumsily transparent. As when a detainee was handed a government certificate concluding her detention, certifying her six months had been well spent at an "education" centre, having satisfactorily completed all requirements. She was required, before her release, to restore to the government whatever it had expended in feeding her for that period, and a receipt for what she paid was subsequently given her; 10 yuan daily, totalling 1,800 yuan.
Rune Steenberg, Xinjiang expert, University of Copenhagen
Those who misbehave while being educated will have suitable penalties meted out. Amina's hands and feet were shackled. She was kicked with metal-tipped boots. To teach her that she must cease asking what crime she had committed. After she agreed never again to go to a mosque nor to wear a head scarf or to pray, she earned a commendation.
"[China may] finally create the very problem it has claimed to be trying to prevent, producing potentially a new generation of suicide bombers."
Jo Smith Finley, Xinjiang expert, Newcastle University
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| In this Nov. 4, 2017 file photo, Uighur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China’s Xinjiang region. |
Labels: China, Kazakhs, Persecution, Reeducation, Uighurs
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 29, 2019
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