The Repression of Uyghurs Is Now an All-Out War Against a People

August 24, 2018 | The Diplomat | By Omer Kanat

Uyghurs struggled for decades to draw attention to the suffering of their people. Chinese authorities have long violated Uyghurs’ cultural, linguistic, and religious rights, marginalizing them in their own homeland. Now they are being rounded up on an unprecedented scale, documented in a new Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) report released yesterday, “The Mass Internment of Uyghurs.” The rapid escalation of repression since 2016 has shocked the world, and tenacious international media coverage has put the issue on the agenda. What remains is for policymakers to act.

Documentation indicates that over 1 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim ethnic groups have been rounded up into what the government calls “transformation through education centers.” These ethnic internment camps hold more than 10 percent of the Uyghur population in indefinite detention. Another 2 million people, according to estimates, are forced to attend day and evening “study sessions.” More facilities are being built, including a massive underground prison in Karamay.

Read the full op-ed here: https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/the-repression-of-uyghurs-is-now-an-all-out-war-against-a-people/