One million. That’s the number of Uyghur Muslims, and other Chinese minorities, who have been arbitrarily detained and thrown into what the Chinese government likes to call “reeducation camps” since 2017. Experts are calling it “the worst humanitarian crisis since the Holocaust,” and no one seems to be talking about it. 

     The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group, predominantly of Muslims; with 11 million of them living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. This group is no stranger to discrimination, but in the last three years China has majorly intensified their efforts to strip them of their Muslim identity.

     Though Beijing originally denied that the camps existed at all, now the Chinese government claims they are “optional” centers that are similar to boarding school, where citizens learn job skills, the Mandarin language and Chinese laws; but that’s hardly true. If an intern gets a choice at all, which isn’t often, their only alternative is jail time. 

     In reality, the camps aren’t far off from prisons anyway. Disturbingly, interns are subject to physical, sexual, and mental abuse, forced injections, food and sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, use of restraints, and even sometimes torture or death. The treatment is even worse for individuals who resist or “fail to show progress.”

     Within the vocational training centers, Uyghurs are under extreme surveillance at all times and are forced to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party of China, while denouncing their own faith. The government has gone as far as to force sterilization and abortions on women.

     Yet, somehow they try to justify all of this by claiming that the actions are necessary to prevent the “three evils,” which they classify as separatism, extremism, and international terrorism. 

     A country trying to protect its national security against terrorists is to be expected, however the problem arises when said country classifies an entire ethnic group as “potential terrorists” and detains them before they ever show any intention of committing a crime.

     Even the “free” Uyghurs aren’t truly free. In order to monitor the Uyghur people and make sure that they don’t have any “terrorist tendencies”, the government turned Xinjiang into a police state. 

     Inhabitants are frequently stopped at police checkpoints, where their identification cards are scanned, their photograph and thumb prints are taken, and their phones are searched. In addition to these outrageous procedures, the region is covered in high tech surveillance systems to watch their every move and protect the country from “extremism.”

     The ways that these extreme views can be identified includes but are not limited to: “abnormal beards,” wearing veils or headscarves, regular prayer, fasting, avoiding alcohol, owning literature about Islamic culture, sending texts with verses from the Quran, and contacting people in certain other countries. It seems like being Muslim at all, is a form of extremism in the eyes of the Chinese government. 

     And the government truly believes that this mentality is valid too. In 2014, Uyghur demonstrators who belonged to a militant group, violently rioted in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi- which unfortunately resulted in the death of at least 197 people.

     But the Chinese government holding all Uyghurs accountable for a small percent of them, is along the lines of when Americans act like all Muslims are terrorists because of 9/11. The logic doesn’t make sense, and in this case death just begets more death.

     Though strides are finally being made to put an end to this. In June, Donald Trump signed the ‘Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020” which authorizes the imposition of U.S. sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for the persecution of the Uyghur people.

     The United Nations got involved as well. 22 countries- including Japan and the United Kingdoms- signed a letter urging China to end it’s “mass arbitrary detentions and violations,” and called on Beijing to allow the United Nations to access the region.

     Although, in response to these actions, China claimed that most of the interns have been released, which has been proven false. Instead, many of them have been moved to factories around the country with similar conditions, and forced to work for popular companies. Among the companies accused are Apple, Samsung, Nike, BMW, Sony, and Volkswagen.

     But hope is not lost, the more awareness that is brought to this mass genocide, the more actions that are being taken to bring about its end. Companies are beginning to pull away from the use of Uyghur workers, America is beginning to distance itself from Chinese products, and more governments are beginning to get involved.  

     It might feel like we can’t do much to help, but it is our obligation to continue sharing the stories of the Uyghur people, pressuring our government to intervene, and insisting that complicit companies stand with us.