Qaila Sarwar

The Uighurs

It is estimated that just under one million people have been placed into what the Chinese Government have termed ‘re-education centres’, in order to ostensibly combat extremist views and religious-based terrorism. The Xinjiang Government and educational institutional websites state that these centres are scholastic facilities designed to  ‘…wash clean the brains of people who have become bewitched by the extreme religious ideologies of the three forces.’ According to several ‘leaked’ documents by the Chinese Authorities, it is estimated that around 15,000 people were sent to these camps within just one week in 2017, showing the sheer scale of the attack on Uighur Muslims by the Chinese Government. These documents were also said to include a memo which have strict instructions from the highest security official at the time, explaining that the camps are to be run as ‘high security prisons with strict discipline, punishments and no escapes’. Having said this, it is unclear how much weight we can attribute to these ‘leaked documents’ as the Chinese Government are staying extremely silent on the matter and denying any human rights breaches within these camps.