In-person and online interviews we have conducted with 53 persons, some of whom are directly victims of concentration camps, from February to June 2021 is the focal point of the Human Rights Report on China Uyghur Autonomous Region. Witnesses interviewed reside in 12 countries (USA, Germany, Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, UK, Kazakhstan, Norway, Turkey). 42 of interviewees are Uyghur and 19 of them are women, 6 of them are direct camp victims and 40 of them are relatives of victims. Over 70 hours of shooting was done during interviews with the consent of interviewees.
After touching upon what China has been doing and aiming in the region in the introduction of the report, securitization by China of Uyghur Autonomous Region is considered with a near past examination that extends to 9/11 attacks. It is considered how Chinese Communist Party manipulates the global terror concern in order to eradicate religious and ethnic differences and how this led to irreparable damages to ethnic and religious minorities, the Uyghur in particular. Rapid regression in fundamental rights and freedoms in the post-2009 era and elimination of human rights such as education in the mother tongue and freedom of belief are included in the report along with testimonies of witnesses.
The report examines concentration camps in details which surfaced, for the first time, in years from 2014 to 2016 and became widespread with massive detentions after 2016 with real-life experiences of victims isolated in the said camps and their relatives. Physical conditions within concentration camps that are harsh to an extent unprecedented since WWII, examples of torture and sexual abuse are included in the report along with statements of witnesses. A separate section was dedicated within the report to those camps where children “seized” by the Chinese government for their parents are in concentration camps. Children kept in those camps, in total deprivation of their cultural heritage, are subjected to “Sinicization” program, with no contact with their close – distant family members.
Slave labor centers in Uyghur Region that are among important parts of global supply chain and how such centers are being run are discussed in details within the report. Exploitation of labor of slave workers without compensation and in a manner subject to social isolation was revealed with testimonies of victims’ relatives. Repressions orchestrated by Chinese state Uyghurs living outside borders of China and the other minorities are faced with, breakdown of their contact with their families or restricted communication under supervision of police and widespread threats they take for return to China are considered thoroughly under the heading “Uyghurs Living Outside China” within the report. Radical interventions by China on the Uyghur traditional family structure, massive sterilization policy that has victimized Uyghur, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz women of all ages and role of the Uyghur Autonomous Region in the international organ trafficking are presented to the reader with witnesses’ statements.
It was deemed fit to address whether or not Chinese population is aware of what has been taking place in the Uyghur region under a separate heading. Because this issue was closely related to freedom of “information”, which is one of the fundamental rights which the authoritarian single-party regime of China deprived of its own citizens.
The final section of the report addressing camps within framework of international law is based on statements of 6 camp victims from among 53 persons interviewed during the study. Tortures described in detail within such statements and personal testimonies of victims are being examined on a legal ground in respect of “genocide” accusation that is included in the international law.
Uyghur Autonomous Region Human Rights Report has been prepared in 5 languages; i.e. Arabic, Chinese, English, Turkish and Uyghur. You may access versions of the report in different languages and high resolution illustrations at uyghurreport.com.
