President Biden is ramping up pressure on Beijing over its alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which include – according to human rights groups – warehousing the Uygher Muslims who populate the far-western region in prisons that double as reeducation centers. The CCP says the Uyghers are receiving job training under the generous supervision of the state…
For that reason, it appears, the Chinese authorities granted reporters from the Associated Press a guided tour of Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center, one of the biggest detention centers in the country….
According to the AP, the Detention Center is one of the largest in China, and possibly one of the largest in the world. It can hold an estimated 10K people, and many more if they are crowded in (like in American prisons). The compound itself is spread across 220 acres…
Many Uyghers have been imprisoned for the crime of attending a religious gathering, or traveling abroad.
“We’re moving from a police state to a mass incarceration state. Hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared from the population,” Byler said. “It’s the criminalization of normal behavior.”
During the April tour of No. 3 in Dabancheng, officials repeatedly distanced it from the “training centers” that Beijing claims to have closed.
“There was no connection between our detention center and the training centers,” insisted Urumqi Public Security Bureau director Zhao Zhongwei. “There’s never been one around here.” Read more…