China is putting minority Muslims in concentration camps

The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Human rights organizations, UN officials, and many foreign governments are urging China to stop the abuses. But Chinese officials maintain that what they called vocational training centres do not infringe on Uighurs’ human rights.

They have refused to share information about the detention centres and prevented journalists and foreign investigators from examining them.

However, internal Chinese government documents leaked in late 2019 have provided important details on how officials launched and maintain the detention camps. Information on what actually happens in the camps is limited, but many detainees who have since escaped China describe harsh conditions. Detainees are forced to pledge loyalty to the government and renounce Islam and learn Mandarin. Some reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, with some saying they were forced to undergo abortions or have contraceptive devices implanted against their will.

Detention also disrupts families, children whose parents have been sent to the camps are often forced to stay in state-run orphanages. Uighur parents living outside of China often face a difficult choice: return home to be with their children and risk detention, or stay abroad, separated from their children and unable to contact them.

Experts estimate that Xinjiang reeducation efforts started in 2014 and were drastically expanded in 2017 to more than one hundred concentration camps

The reason why the Chinese government is doing this is that as I mentioned before the Uighur mostly live in Xinjiang an extremely important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive development plan stretching through Asia and Europe and is also home to China’s largest coal and natural gas reserves and for that Beijing hopes to eradicate any possibility of separatist activity.

Chinese officials are concerned that Uighurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they view the camps as a way of eliminating threats to China’s territorial integrity, government, and population. Government officials first denied the camps’ existence but things changed around October 2018, when officials started calling them centres for “vocational education and training programs.” In March 2019, their official name became “vocational training centres.”

Much of the world has condemned China’s detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang.

UN officials have demanded access to the camps, the European Union has called on China to respect religious freedom and change its policies in Xinjiang.

However, this still occurring problem isn't being covered enough by the media and most people still do not have the slightest clue of what is happening in Xinjiang.