Today: 15 July 2025
25 May 2022
2 mins read

Leaked ‘Xinjiang Police Files’ expose China’s repression of Uyghurs

The cache reveals, in unprecedented detail, China’s use of “re-education” camps and formal prisons as two separate but related systems of mass detention for Uyghurs...reports Asian Lite News

Thousands of photographs from the heart of China’s highly secretive system of mass incarceration in Xinjiang, as well as a shoot-to-kill policy for those who try to escape, are among a huge cache of data hacked from police computer servers in the region.

The Xinjiang Police Files, as they’re being called, were passed to the BBC earlier this year.

After a months-long effort to investigate and authenticate them, they can be shown to offer significant new insights into the internment of the region’s Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities.

Their publication coincides with the recent arrival in China of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, for a controversial visit to Xinjiang, with critics concerned that her itinerary will be under the tight control of the government.

The cache reveals, in unprecedented detail, China’s use of “re-education” camps and formal prisons as two separate but related systems of mass detention for Uyghurs,and seriously calls into question its well-honed public narrative about both, the BBC reported.

The government’s claim that the re-education camps built across Xinjiang since 2017 are nothing more than “schools” is contradicted by internal police instructions, guarding rosters and the never-before-seen images of detainees, the report said.

And its widespread use of terrorism charges, under which many thousands more have been swept into formal prisons, is exposed as a pretext for a parallel method of internment, with police spreadsheets full of arbitrary, draconian sentences.

The documents provide some of the strongest evidence to date for a policy targeting almost any expression of Uyghur identity, culture or Islamic faith, and of a chain of command running all the way up to the Chinese President Xi Jinping, the BBC reported.

The hacked files contain more than 5,000 police photographs of Uyghurs taken between January and July 2018.

Using other accompanying data, at least 2,884 of them can be shown to have been detained.

And for those listed as being in a re-education camp, there are signs that they are not the willing “students” China has long-claimed them to be.

ALSO READ: Global Uyghur diaspora marks 32 years of Baren revolution

Previous Story

UAE to reward Emiratisation

Next Story

Life in a refugee camp

Latest from -Top News

UN Chief: Gaza Situation ‘Horrific’

Guterres said the violence undermines the most basic conditions of human dignity for the population of Gaza…reports Asian Lite News UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the situation in Gaza as “horrific,” calling

Beijing Sidelined in Mideast Clash

Yet when Iran came under a massive Israeli attack — supported by U.S. air strikes targeting its nuclear infrastructure — China’s reaction was mostly symbolic…reports Asian Lite News The recent conflict between

India, Saudi Expand Sectoral Ties

Both sides underscored their commitment to broadening the scope of bilateral relations…reports Asian Lite News Union Health and Chemicals & Fertilisers Minister J.P. Nadda’s visit to Dammam and Riyadh underscored the deepening

UN slams resumption of Houthi attacks

In the first such incidents for more than six months, the Yemeni group seized and then scuttled two Liberian-flagged bulk carriers operated by Greek shipping firms, leaving four seafarers presumed dead and
Go toTop

Don't Miss

China building bridge across Pangong Lake

India’s foreign ministry said the bridge is being constructed in

Lanka blocks Chinese ‘spy’ ship after pressure from India

According to a bilateral agreement signed in 1987, no Sri