The Uyghur emergency: The causes and consequences of China’s mass incarceration of Turkic Muslims

Published on Dec 9, 2018

The Chinese government is under increased pressure over its archipelago of mass detention camps, holding approximately one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as East Turkestan). Beijing has responded with a flurry of contradictory rhetoric, first denying that the camps exist, then portraying them as voluntary vocational training centres, and most recently describing them as a ‘counter-terrorism’ measure that Europe should learn from.

In this public seminar, a panel of experts and practitioners focus on some of the core questions surrounding the evolution of this crisis. Why is this happening now? How many people are in the camps? What are the implications for the Uyghur people, China and the international community?