Since 2017, Beijing has had 380 new detention camps built for members of Muslim minorities in China's Xinjiang province - according to an Australian study. China's leadership speaks of "educational centers".
At least 14 facilities are still under construction, according to research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think tank. ASPI experts had identified and mapped more than new 380 sites in the Xinjiang region based on satellite imagery, construction tenders and witness reports, it added. Only re-education camps, detention centers and prisons that have been newly built or significantly expanded since 2017 were counted, it said. The findings contradict claims by Chinese leaders to scale back the mass internment campaign in the region.
According to estimates by human rights activists, about one million members of Muslim minorities are imprisoned in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs accuses the government in Beijing of separatism and terrorism.
Ten million Uyghurs live in China
Critics speak of re-education camps in which Uyghurs are to be brought into line with the Communist Party by sometimes brutal means. Beijing always denies the existence of detention camps in Xinjiang. The government now says that the camps are "educational centers" that serve to fight Islamist radicalization. The Australian institute is "the vanguard of anti-Chinese forces" and its academic credibility is "highly questionable," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
An estimated ten million Uyghurs live in China, most of them in Xinjiang. They are ethnically related to the Turks and feel economically, politically and culturally oppressed by the ruling Han Chinese. After coming to power in 1949, the Communists incorporated the former East Turkestan into China.