Officials from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region yesterday said that most of the people who were in the area’s controversial re-education centers have since left the facilities and signed “work contracts” with local companies.
The US government, human rights groups and independent analysts estimate that about 1 million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang’s heavily guarded internment camps, which the Chinese government calls vocational training centers. The region is home to Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups.
Xinjiang Governor Shohrat Zakir declined to give a figure for those he called “students” inside the centers during a news conference, but he defended the facilities as an effective and “pioneering” approach to counterterrorism.
“Most of the graduates from the vocational training centers have been reintegrated into society,” Zakir said. “More than 90 percent of the graduates have found satisfactory jobs with good incomes.”
Accounts of mistreatment in the camps were concocted by a few countries and media outlets, Xinjiang Vice Chairman Alken Tuniaz said.
Former detainees and their family members have said in interviews with Western journalists that the re-education centers resembled prisons where they were forced to renounce their faith and swear loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
They said that they were subject to repeated political indoctrination and often did not understand why they were being held in the facilities.
Traveling overseas, speaking to relatives abroad and growing a long beard are all acts that might land someone in detention, according to Uighurs and Kazakhs who have fled the region.
The centers protected people’s liberties by allowing them to “request time off” and “regularly go home,” Tuniaz said.
While the people inside the centers are not permitted to practice their religion during their “period of study,” they can resume activities related to their faith when they are at home, he added.
The officials yesterday did not address whether the program is voluntary or how often people are allowed to go home.
After international condemnation of and extensive reporting on the centers, China began organizing highly choreographed trips to Xinjiang for journalists and foreign officials. Earlier this month, UN envoys from 37 countries — including North Korea, Syria and several Muslim-majority states — signed a letter supporting the camps and commending China’s human rights record.
World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit called Zakir a “political microphone” used by Beijing to spread its “deception.”
“Shohrat Zakir’s remarks completely distort the reality of the systematic persecution that Uighurs are suffering in China,” Raxit said.
The US Department of State coordinator for counterterrorism, Nathan Sales, said in a July interview with Radio Free Asia that the detentions of Muslims in Xinjiang had “nothing to do with terrorism” and was instead part of the CCP’s “war on religion.”
“It is trying to stamp out the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious identities of the people,” Sales added.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
RSS