16 votes

How I survived a Chinese ‘reeducation’ camp for Uighurs

6 comments

  1. [2]
    Moonchild
    Link
    Also worth a read, from last year: the ‘china cables’—leaked documents published by ICIJ. Excerpt from one, a manual (or memo? latter seems more likely due to length) on the operation of...

    Also worth a read, from last year: the ‘china cables’—leaked documents published by ICIJ.

    Excerpt from one, a manual (or memo? latter seems more likely due to length) on the operation of internment camps:

    Prevent escapes. Adhere to zone separation and individual unit management, and improve the installation of police stations at front gates, security guard duty rooms, high guard posts, security guard posts and patrol routes, etc.

    [...]

    Strictly manage and control student activities to prevent escapes during class, eating periods, toilet breaks, bath time, medical treatment, family visits, etc

    [...]

    Strengthen on duty guard and protection. Strictly implement a 24-hour duty shift system. [...] Strengthen actual combat exercises to ensure that once something happens, scenes are immediately, quickly and decisively cleared.

    Ideological education. Establish an individual conversation system, grasp the students' ideological dynamics in a timely manner, effectively resolve ideological contradictions, and guide away students from bad emotions. [...] form a healthy and inspirational atmosphere, promote the repentance and confession of the students for them to understand deeply the illegal, criminal and dangerous nature of their past behavior. Pay attention to the development of psychological counseling and bring psychological correction education into play.

    Family education. [...] establish a mechanism for students and relatives to interact with each other, [...] to make their family feel at ease and the students feel safe. Pay attention to the ideological problems and emotional changes that arise after family communications, and do a good job of timely ideological guidance. Explore the establishment of two-way teaching and two-way point system for local schools, and promote the transformation of students' education.

    Behavior management. The trainee's study, life, and activity management system should be formulated in detail, and the students should have a fixed bed position, fixed queue position, fixed classroom seat, and fixed station during skills work, and it is strictly forbidden for this to be changed

    Strict secrecy. The work policy of the vocational skills education and training centers are strong and highly sensitivity. It is necessary to strengthen the staff’s awareness of staying secret, serious political discipline and secrecy discipline. It is strictly forbidden to bring video and video equipment such as mobile phones and cameras into the teaching and management areas and uploading pictures onto the internet at will. Relevant important data should not be aggregated, not be disseminated, and not be open to the outside

    5 votes
    1. Moonchild
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Another: Another, from a court document (‘----’ indicates names which were redacted):

      Another:

      If any are suspected of terrorism, it is necessary to fix the evidence and strike according to law in a timely manner

      Another, from a court document (‘----’ indicates names which were redacted):

      Qakilik Country People’s Procuratorate Criminal Prosecution Indictment (2018) 132 charged the accused ---- of the crime of incitement of ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination

      [...]

      he incited extremist religious thoughts in his colleagues ---- ---- ---- ---- and others such as: Do not say dirty words, do not watch porn or you will become a kafir (non-believer), if you don’t pray and watch porn, your soul will not be clean for 40 days and God will not accept your prayers. If you eat without praying, you will become a kafir. If you do not pray, you will be in hell and God will not forgive you. All people who do not pray are Han Chinese kafirs. You cannot eat food from women who do not pray. You cannot eat food from people who smoke and drink alcohol.

      [...]

      The counsel for defendant ---- said “his deeds constitute a crime and the People’s Procuratorate’s accusation against him is correct. Both the defendant, ----, and I have no argument against this accusation. Due to the defendant’s low legal awareness and education level, he was easily susceptible to being misguided and committing crimes. He’s guilty. This is his first criminal record and I ask the court to deal with him leniently”.

      [...]

      The defendant ---- for the crime of inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination, is sentenced to prison for ten years and the deprivation of political rights for five years.

      4 votes
  2. Moonchild
    Link
    Interesting pair of comments from reddit. Make of them what you will:

    Interesting pair of comments from reddit. Make of them what you will:

    When the nurses grabbed my arm to “vaccinate” me, I thought they were poisoning me. In reality, they were sterilizing us.

    While the rest of her treatment certainly sounds abhorrent, this was almost certainly just a temporary birth control injection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medroxyprogesterone_acetate

    There are no drugs available that offer permanent sterilization by injection.

    Theoretically China could have made some new medical breakthrough and kept it secret, but if they had... why would they be still doing surgical sterilizations of other Uighur Muslim women?

    This is not the first time temporary birth control shots have been misrepresented as if they were permanent sterilization, similar accusations get made against Israel as well.

    There's nothing safe that you can inject to cause permanent sterilization, but they could have been injected with something toxic enough to knock out their reproductive system without killing them. A number of cancer drugs that generally leave patients sterile come to mind.

    3 votes
  3. [3]
    Grzmot
    Link
    Man, if Hitler didn't want to take over the world, he'd have a great time completely eradicating the jews in his controlled territory. I have no words. I wouldn't even know where to begin with...

    Man, if Hitler didn't want to take over the world, he'd have a great time completely eradicating the jews in his controlled territory.

    I have no words. I wouldn't even know where to begin with this, what would be an effective way to force China to stop doing it.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      nothis
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      This has always been a terrifying thought to me. The descriptions in this article, they sound like one inch removed from an actual Nazi concentration camp, especially that line about inmates...

      This has always been a terrifying thought to me. The descriptions in this article, they sound like one inch removed from an actual Nazi concentration camp, especially that line about inmates "disappearing" after collapsing. And I'm thinking to myself, reading this, "well, I probably shouldn't make that comparison, the Nazis actually systematically killed their inmates on a level that's not comparable". But then again, they also were stopped because they went too far.

      The illusions of world domination, the plans of total extermination of entire ethnic groups... it was, in a way, what united the rest of the world to fight back and overtake the Nazi regime. And it's a haunting thought to imagine what would have happened had they had just... stopped. Somewhere before invading the countries that actually were able to match their military force. There would likely been diplomatic hickhacks but they would have swept much of the Holocaust under the rug. People would know about it, would "tsk-tsk-tsk" and shake their heads but what are you gonna do? They'd have a powerful industrial sector, people would still buy German cars, even if part of the price would go into taxes financing a Nazi regime. It could have been sustainable, it could still be around.

      What's terrifying about China is that they know where they have to back down, where they have to be clever. Their business with foreign nations goes against Communist ideals but it ensures them having a place in the world economy that finances their operation and makes even the US dependent on their exports. I bet the Uighur camps are carefully run in a way that just barely avoids international outcries. A Guardian article here and there, some "tsk-tsk-tsk", some head shaking and accusing threads on Tildes but... man, those Chinese phones are just so much cheaper!

      They're a smart regime. They know exactly what they're doing, plan ahead and anticipate public outcries. It's all included in their calculations. It's a long-term strategy, which makes it so terrifying. This isn't some violent dictator rising to power for 10 years before succumbing to a revolt for pushing it too far. This is a regime that knows when to stop, so it can continue forever.

      7 votes
      1. Grzmot
        Link Parent
        Perhaps the Russian gulags would be a better comparison. While they had an exceptionally high mortality rate, they weren't designed to kill all inmates, during the hightime ('42 to '43) they had a...

        This has always been a terrifying thought to me. The descriptions in this article, they sound like one inch removed from an actual Nazi concentration camp, especially that line about inmates "disappearing" after collapsing. And I'm thinking to myself, reading this, "well, I probably shouldn't make that comparison, the Nazis actually systematically killed their inmates on a level that's not comparable". But then again, they also were stopped because they went too far.

        Perhaps the Russian gulags would be a better comparison. While they had an exceptionally high mortality rate, they weren't designed to kill all inmates, during the hightime ('42 to '43) they had a death rate of 20%, but it was usually lower.

        At the same time, I can't imagine but the Chinese labour camps being a combination of the concentration camps and gulags. They still aim to cripple a native population so much that they essentially eradicate it (like the concentration camps) while at the same time being a tool of oppression. It's like a combination of both. Like they learned from both.

        3 votes