Disturbing new details are emerging about the treatment of China’s ethnic Uighur population in the country’s far west region.
The Xinjiang Police Files, an unprecedented data leak, includes nearly three thousand mugshots of detainees believed to be held in reeducation camps.
The documents also reveal shoot-to-kill orders to prevent detainees from escaping, and a push by Chinese leader Xi Jinping for more detention centers because the existing ones are overcrowded.
The leak comes at a pivotal moment in the global discussion on Beijing’s human rights record. United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, was in the middle of a highly orchestrated trip to China when news of the leak broke.
China disputes the leak and claims the information in it are “lies”. But human rights advocates say the files directly contradict China’s claims that people in the reeducation facilities were there on their own behalf.....
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