"First kill, then report": New data leak shows the cruel situation of the Uyghurs in China
Created: 05/24/2022, 19:05
By: Sven Hauberg
This leaked image is said to show security forces with assault rifles during an exercise.
© Xinjiang Police Files
Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are said to be imprisoned in camps in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Now "shocking details" about the human rights violations have become known.
Munich/Beijing – Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, is in China these days.
During her six-day visit - the first by a human rights commissioner to the country since 2005 - Bachelet will also travel to Xinjiang.
The huge region in north-west China has been under particular scrutiny from the world public for years: Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly members of the Uyghur ethnic minority, are said to be imprisoned in re-education camps here.
Now, a data leak has revealed new, gruesome details from the Xinjiang camp system.
Media from several countries, including
Der Spiegel
, BR,
Le Monde
and the BBC, analyzed and verified information from the massive data leak under the name "Xinjiang Police Files".
The data had been leaked to the German sinologist Adrian Zenz, who has been researching the camp system from the USA for years and has published leaked information about the camp system in the past.
According to
Spiegel
, the data leak apparently came from a hacker who penetrated the computer systems of Chinese security authorities.
"It's like a window into a police state with so little information getting out.
We've never seen anything like it," reports Zenz.
The camps are high-security prisons.
Secret speeches, photos of prisoners, internment lists and training documents from the security authorities make the extent clear.
Information about around 300,000 Chinese registered by the authorities, mainly Uyghurs, is therefore among the data.
China: Xinjiang's party leader apparently gave the order to shoot himself
According to the media involved, the data set includes a previously unknown speech by former Xinjiang party leader Chen Quanguo from 2017. It states that any prisoner who even tries to escape a few steps is "to shoot".
In another speech, Chen issued the motto "Kill first, then report".
Leaked images are said to show security forces with assault rifles.
Another photo shows a detainee in a so-called tiger chair - a torture device in which the legs are overstretched.
Chen was considered a hardliner and was only recently replaced as part of a personnel swap.
His successor Ma Xingrui, previously governor of the booming province of Guangdong, is considered a pragmatist.
It is still unclear to what extent this will affect the situation.
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The government in Beijing initially denied the existence of the re-education camps.
When the evidence became inescapable, she described the camps as “professional training facilities” that were attended voluntarily.
According to the new data, there can be less talk of that than ever.
Massive human rights crimes are systematically committed in the province, primarily against the Muslim Uyghurs, but also against members of other minorities such as the Kazakhs.
Xinjiang: Leaked police data gives prisoners a face
The Xinjiang Police Files put faces to many of the prisoners.
About a man named Adiljan T., who is said to have been sentenced to twelve years in prison – just because he had trained in a gym for two weeks.
The accusation of the authorities: "preparation of a terrorist act".
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"It is a systematic crime against humanity," Zenz told
Der Spiegel
.
"We have a variety of different crimes here - from detention in re-education camps to forced labour, to the demolition of mosques, to the restriction of religion.
The point is to assimilate these people, these peoples, to break them internally so that they become subservient to the party and can be better controlled by the state.”
In Xinjiang, anyone who uses a VPN network to access foreign websites is liable to prosecution;
writes the report.
It is also forbidden to teach Islamic content or watch "forbidden" videos.
It has also been known for some time that wearing a beard is considered a reason for imprisonment.
For the research, the journalists also spoke to relatives of the detainees, who confirmed the information.
In a first reaction to the publications, Great Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss spoke of "shocking details about China's human rights violations in Xinjiang".
China: criticism of Michelle Bachelet's visit
According to
Spiegel
, some of the camps identified in the "Xinjiang Police Files" have now been dissolved.
Instead, new prison camps have been set up elsewhere in the province.
It is unlikely that UN Human Rights Commissioner Bachelet will see these often very remote facilities during her visit.
Bachelet's visit to China was therefore heavily criticized in advance by human rights groups, among others.
They fear the UN official will "step into a minefield of propaganda laid out by the Chinese Communist Party".
The United States also expressed concern that Beijing could restrict Bachelet's access, which would be necessary for a "comprehensive and unmanipulated assessment of the human rights situation".
Bachelet employees, on the other hand, emphasized that China had promised that the UN commissioner could speak freely and without supervision with whomever she wanted.
China: Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks of "false information"
Bachelet met with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Guangzhou on Monday.
According to the state news agency Xinhua, Wang spoke of "false information" about his country that was being spread by "some countries and anti-Chinese forces".
China claims its actions in Xinjiang are only aimed at potential terrorists, citing terrorist attacks in recent years.
Also on Monday, Bachelet spoke to around 100 Western diplomats in a video call, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
The former Chilean President is said to have said that her visit to China was not an "investigation" - an indication that Bachelet already wants to dampen the expectations of the international community.
Back in 2018, Bachelet spoke of "deeply disturbing allegations of arbitrary detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim communities" taking place "in so-called re-education camps across Xinjiang."
A report on the situation in Xinjiang, which Bachelet wanted to present months ago, has not yet been published.
She has announced a press conference on her trip to China for next Saturday.
(sh)
