• moderatecentrist@feddit.uk
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    5 days ago

    According to the BBC, Xi Jinping himself may have been pushing for the system of camps used for the internment of Uyghurs:

    In a speech, stamped as “classified” and delivered by Zhao Kezhi, China’s Minister for Public Security, on a visit to Xinjiang in June 2018, he suggests that at least two million people are infected with “extremist thought” in southern Xinjiang alone.

    Peppered with references to President Xi Jinping, the speech heaps praise on the Chinese leader for his “important instructions” for the construction of new facilities and an increase in funding for prisons to cope with the influx in detainees necessary to reach that two million target.

    You mention “massive amounts of footage” - the article I have just linked to has photos taken inside these internment camps, but it seems the wider world was only able to see these photos once Chinese police computers had been hacked (the source of the info in that article).

    Anyway, maybe the truth is that every country is capable of bad things, whether it’s the US, or Israel, or China, or any other country.

    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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      4 days ago

      The BBC article constantly references Adrian Zenz, supposed “Sinologist” who doesnt speak a word of Chinese and hasn’t set foot in the country. Oh, he’s also a cofounder of the “victims of communism memorial association” and a rabid christian fundamentalist. I wonder if any of that has anything to do with his desire to spread propaganda of “China bad”.

      Go to the article: published May 2022, all the claims are of things that supposedly happened in 2017, 2018 or at most 2019. I repeat my original point: are there any ONGOING acts of mass mistreatment of Uyghur in Xinjiang? Best you can come up with is pictures from the well-known reeducation camps from 8 years ago.

      What we know so far is this: there was a series of terrorist attacks in China in 2013-2014 onwards, coming from Islamist radicals linked to Al-Qaida and ISIS. The government responded later with a big reeducation program in the province of Xinjiang, which by all accounts is closed by 2021. There is anecdotal, mostly anonymous, evidence of mistreatment of particular individuals in the process, not corroborated by material evidence such as video or picture. All the news you find refer to processes that took place 5-ish years ago. I cast the same question that I asked at the beginning: IS THERE ANY ONGOING MASS-MISTREATMENTS OF UYGHURS IN XINJIANG

      • moderatecentrist@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        are there any ONGOING acts of mass mistreatment of Uyghur in Xinjiang?

        I don’t know. But even if the detention camps have closed (whether they have, I don’t know), the treatment of Uyghurs for a while still seems to have been bad. I’m not trying to say “China is worse than the West” or anything like that. I just think that massive internment camps for ethnic minorities, where rape allegedly happens, don’t seem like a great thing - whether they appear in China, the USA, or anywhere else.

        there was a series of terrorist attacks in China in 2013-2014 onwards, coming from Islamist radicals linked to Al-Qaida and ISIS. The government responded later with a big reeducation program in the province of Xinjiang

        If the US had done the same thing in their country after 9/11, I bet you would have criticised it.

        • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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          1 day ago

          If the US had done the same thing

          The US does this today. 20% of black males go through prison throughout their lifetimes, they have the largest prison population in the world. The difference being that this isn’t a temporary measure lasting a few years, with the (achieved) goal being reeducation as a consequence of terrorist strikes in the wake of a world wave of radical Islamism. This is a systematic form of racism, a legacy of slavery (and a continuation given how slave labour is legal in US prisons) and something you probably have 0 comments talking about.

          where rape allegedly happens

          There isn’t material evidence of mass rape taking place. You could claim this about any institution in any patriarchal society, but we don’t append “where rape allegedly happens” to every institution.

          • moderatecentrist@feddit.uk
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            1 day ago

            I think the testimonies of rape are credible and major news organisations from multiple countries clearly think that leaked police files from Xinjiang are credible. I’m not aware of similar accusations regarding American prisons concerning black inmates.

            Anyway, I expect you just won’t believe anything the BBC says (which I just linked to). I think the BBC are credible and reliable, but if you don’t think that, okay. I can’t change your mind of course. We will just have different views.

              • moderatecentrist@feddit.uk
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                1 day ago

                Interesting, I googled for reports of Arab emissaries going to Xinjiang and I found this from Time magazine, published in 2022:

                Arab states are not only lending rhetorical support to China, they are also actively assisting Beijing in its global campaign of abuse and reprisals against Uighurs. At least six governments in the Arab world—Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE—have detained or extradited Uighurs at China’s behest. According to our dataset at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, around 292 Uighurs have been detained or deported from Arab states at China’s behest since 2002.

                Also you mention “multiple western* countries” as if western countries are automatically wrong. I don’t think that’s true. I think there are certainly biased media outlets in the West, but I think there are genuine and reliable media outlets too. I think the BBC is reliable. If someone proves their reporting to be plain wrong then I will re-evaluate them, but I haven’t yet seen that happen.

                • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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                  1 day ago

                  According to our dataset at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, around 292 Uighurs have been detained or deported from Arab states at China’s behest since 2002

                  So? There was a literal terrorist group in China doing terror attacks. Spain alone arrested more than 400 Arabs with connections to ISIS in antiterrorism campaign between 2013 and 2022.

                  Is it a conspiracy involving all Arab states to repress Uyghur for no reason? Or maybe the west, which chooses to align itself geopolitically against China, is doing a campaign to destroy the reputation of China in the eyes of westerners to justify hostilities as we see with sanctions?