China is creating concentration camps in Xinjiang. Here’s how we hold it accountable. - The Washington Post
China is creating concentration camps in Xinjiang. Here’s how we hold it accountable. - The Washington Post: CHINA CONTINUES to see the uproar over its creation of concentration camps holding as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs and others as a public-relations problem. In recent days, the government issued another white paper claiming it is protecting religious freedom and culture in the autonomous northwestern province of Xinjiang, despite evidence that it has corralled much of the Muslim population into spartan camps for forced brainwashing. When Western nations repeatedly brought up the camps on Nov. 6 at China’s five-year United Nations human rights review in Geneva, a top Chinese official dismissed the claims as “seriously far from the truth.”
That is why recently introduced bipartisan legislation in Congress is vitally important. China’s leaders have dissembled for a year and cannot be allowed to escape accountability for the massive indoctrination and internment drive. Exposure of the camps — by witnesses, scholars, nongovernmental organizations and Western governments — has been extremely important. But China’s leaders are not shamed. They are old hands at repression, having built the system known as laojiao, or reeducation through labor, that existed outside the regular prison system and was widely used for punishing dissidents and petty criminals until it was closed down in 2013. Now it has been resurrected for use against the ethnic Uighurs, big time.
That is why recently introduced bipartisan legislation in Congress is vitally important. China’s leaders have dissembled for a year and cannot be allowed to escape accountability for the massive indoctrination and internment drive. Exposure of the camps — by witnesses, scholars, nongovernmental organizations and Western governments — has been extremely important. But China’s leaders are not shamed. They are old hands at repression, having built the system known as laojiao, or reeducation through labor, that existed outside the regular prison system and was widely used for punishing dissidents and petty criminals until it was closed down in 2013. Now it has been resurrected for use against the ethnic Uighurs, big time.