REPORT: China Is Keeping Millions Of Muslims In Massive Government
Internment Camps, by Emily Zanotti, 5/7/19.
The
United States, among other nations, has accused China of keeping millions of
members of the country's Uyghur, most of whom are Muslim, locked inside massive
government internment camps, which China is using as "re-education
centers."
CNN
reports that U.S. Assistant Secretary
of Defense Randall Schriver made the accusations official in a press conference
late last week, accusing China's Communist rulers of forcibly arresting and
detaining between 1 and 3 million Muslims in an effort to eradicate
"Uyghur cultural and religious practices and instilling Communist Party
propaganda," a practice that is known as "cultural genocide."
"The Communist Party is using
the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration
camps," Schriver told media last week, using the loaded term,
"concentration camps," purposefully.
China says the camps are merely
"vocational education training centers" and that the program, which
locks up members of the Uyghur population identified through China's massive
surveillance web, is a form of combatting terrorism.
"We urge the relevant US
individual to respect the fact, abandon bias, exercise prudence in words and
deeds, stop interfering in China's domestic affairs and earnestly contribute to
mutual trust and cooperation between us," a Chinese government
spokesperson said, in a somewhat menacing statement.
The United States State Department
is ignoring China's declarations, and both the United Nations and Amnesty
International are on the U.S.'s side — a rarity in the age of President Donald
Trump.
The New York
Times was among
the first to report on the mass incarcerations in late 2018, after researchers
began to notice that the Chinese government was showing footage of Muslim
Uyghurs on state television "hunched over sewing machines" in a
"factory." Chinese state media portrayed the scene as "political
salvation": hundreds of Muslims "saved" from lives of freedom
when they'd really been forced to renounce their beliefs for months in squalid
conditions before being sent to work in factories as slaves.
The
camps are off limits for reporters and heavily guarded, and while the Chinese
government claims the camps are just "training centers," it appears
no one who is taken to one is allowed to leave, and according to
Agence France Presse,
there are "thousands" of guards patrolling the sprawling compounds
armed with Tasers and "spiked clubs," and "residents" of
the centers are monitored day and night by infrared cameras and security
surveillance.
The
Chinese have been struggling, The New York Times says, to control the
12-million-plus Uyghur population which maintains its Muslim faith in spite of
Chinese government rules outlawing the expression of any religion that isn't
overseen by the state. The Uyghurs also speak little Chinese and don't often
communicate — or listen to — Chinese authorities.
Chinese
state surveillance keeps a close eye on these potential "threats"
through an app called Face++, which the Intercept says is designed to collect all sorts
of personal details about Chinese citizens in general and Uyghurs in
particular, including "data detailing the religious activity, blood type,
and even the amount of electricity used" in Uyghur homes. The app also
provides Chinese authorities with photos necessary for electronic facial
recognition (Hunter Biden, the son of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, is
an investor in the app).
Once
identified, Uyghurs are "selected" for the "free" education
programs and moved into massive camps where they receive language instruction
and vocational training, according to Chinese authorities. The only catch? They
can't leave.
The
United States is being uncharacteristically vocal about the program recently,
even though the Trump White House is looking to ink a massive new trade deal
with the Chinese government. But it seems that's because the situation directly
impacts the American-China economic relationship:
China
is encouraging more clothing and goods manufacturers to relocate their
factories to inside the camps and utilize the Uyghur slave labor, and the
United States would prefer American companies aren't purchasing slave-made
goods.
Comments
China inherited this
oil-rich Muslim Northern province in the sloppy land giveaways in 1945 after
World War II. Asian countries are sensitive to keeping their cultures intact
and demand assimilation. This is China’s response to that problem. They want no
terrorist activity. It's ironic that our liberal media is depicting the Uyghur Mulsims as victims.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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