FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : Feb. 2, 2021
Contact : Rohit Mahajan | 202.530.4976 | mahajanr(a)rfa.org
[ https://www.rfa.org/about/releases/trapped-in-the-system-experiences-of-uyg… | Report Deepens Understanding of Uyghur Detainees’ Treatment in Xinjiang ]
WASHINGTON – A new research [ https://www.rfa.org/about/releases/trapped-in-the-system-experiences-of-uyg… | report ] from Radio Free Asia (RFA) details the experiences of Uyghur detention camp survivors and other detainees from China’s Far West. The qualitative study, Experiences of Uyghur Detention in Post-2015 Xinjiang , provides first-hand accounts focusing on the extrajudicial process Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are subjected to, including the tenuous grounds authorities cite for detention, quotas and financial incentives for arrests and confessions, the classification of individuals by perceived risk categories, and harsh treatment inside the facilities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
RFA’s report may be accessed as a downloadable PDF by clicking [ https://www.rfa.org/about/releases/trapped-in-the-system-experiences-of-uyg… | HERE ] .
“In conducting this research, we tried to understand how the harrowing details of detainee experiences fit into China’s larger system of political and cultural control in Xinjiang,” said Betsy Henderson, RFA’s Chief Strategy Officer and the head of the organization’s Research Department. “Throughout the process we prioritized the safety and mental and physical health of the interviewees, aiming always to ensure our report reflects their full humanity, not just the dehumanizing experiences that continue to haunt them. ”
“RFA’s groundbreaking journalism has shown time and again the extent to which Uyghurs are subjected en masse to China’s indiscriminate extralegal detention, with the clear aim of cultural destruction,” RFA President Bay Fang said. “ This report bears critical witness to the eye-opening details of this human rights crisis, as revealed through the personal accounts of individuals.”
The extensive interviews forming the substance of this report -- a project of RFA’s research division -- were conducted securely between November 2019 and May 2020 in Turkey and Europe with seven ethnic Uyghur ex-detainees and one ethnic Uzbek. The accounts offered by the study’s detention survivors supplement other firsthand accounts that have emerged, as well as the leaked documents and cables detailing the Chinese Communist Party’s far reaching high-tech surveillance and directives to crack down on the Uyghur population and other Muslim minorities in the XUAR. Key findings include:
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A blurring between pre-trial detention facilities and re-education camps , including repurposed or makeshift conversions of existing facilities into ones for detention.
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Accounts of flimsy to nonexistent grounds for arrests and detentions , including innocuous religious signifiers and contact or connection, close or passing, to individuals rated high-risk.
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Confessions forced under extreme duress , including violence or deprivation, and threats of violence to family members.
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Arrest quotas and financial incentives openly discussed by authorities, witnessed firsthand by two of the eight participants in this study.
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No opportunities to share information among detainees , with incriminating conversations likely to lead to maltreatment or torture.
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Medical neglect as well as enforced medical interventions , including lack of doctors on site, weekly blood samples in many camps, and mandatory unidentified injections and pills.
The report builds on past work from RFA’s research team, including a 2018 quantitative survey that focused on the experiences and media consumption habits of Uyghurs in Turkey who had left the Uyghur region. Journalists in RFA’s Uyghur Service were among the first to sound the alarm as China moved in recent years to detain more than 1 million members of Muslim minorities in the XUAR. First exposing the mass internment of Uyghurs in 2017, the service has meticulously documented related developments such as the transfer of prisoners to other regions of China, the construction of orphanages for the children of detained Uyghurs, and the destruction of cultural and sacred locations including, historic city centers, mosques and grave sites.
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Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the United States Agency for Global Media.
Rohit Mahajan
Vice President of Communications and External Relations
Radio Free Asia
Dear friends -- Tomorrow Radio Free Asia will be releasing a research report on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities detained in Xinjiang. Details of the related virtual event, hosted by GW's Central Asia Program, including a link to RSVP, follow below. Hope you can join us!
Kind regards,
Rohit
Event
The Central Asia Program and Radio Free Asia invite you to a virtual discussion of RFA's upcoming report
Trapped in the System: Experiences of Uyghur Detention in Xinjiang
Tuesday, February 2 , 2021
10:00 - 11:00 AM (EST)
[ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0014K3Z9QtkjCDCS_zB1s-E5M58L8nZyr3NM7Vx05rHVVO-… | Click here to join Webex event ]
Event Number (access code): [ callto:120 804 6737 | 120 804 6737 ]
Event password: CAP0202
[ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0014K3Z9QtkjCDCS_zB1s-E5M58L8nZyr3NM7Vx05rHVVO-… | RSVP ]
More than a million -- some say 3 million -- Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been arbitrarily detained and imprisoned in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2016. While outlets like Radio Free Asia (RFA) have played a pivotal role in exposing Beijing’s sweeping detentions in the Uyghur homeland, documenting the process by which Chinese authorities target, interrogate, and detain Uyghurs and other minorities has been murky. Recently, RFA’s research department carried out a series of in-depth interviews with survivors from these camps. These rich firsthand accounts from the inside provide not just a detailed scene of the brutal en masse interrogations, incarcerations, classifications, and means of torture, but heart-wrenching, vivid pictures of the human beings caught in its gears.
Please join the George Washington University's Central Asia Program on Tuesday, February 2 , 2021 at 10 am US ET as Dr. Sean Roberts, Associate Professor of International Affairs and Director of the International Development Studies Program at GW's Elliott School of International Affairs, hosts a discussion with Radio Free Asia about its forthcoming report. Speakers will include Betsy Henderson, Chief Strategy Officer and head of RFA’s audience research program; Alim Seytoff, Director of RFA's Uyghur Service; and Human Rights Watch’s Maya Wang, China Senior Researcher.
SPEAKERS
Sean Roberts is an anthropologist with regional expertise in Central Asia, where he also has also done extensive applied development work on issues related to civil society, governance, and human rights. Much of his academic work has focused on the Uyghur people in the People’s Republic of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as well as in Central Asia and Turkey. His first book, The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority (Princeton University Press, September 2020 ) draws on his field research and in-depth interviews with Uyghurs. Roberts also writes on issues related to politics and development in the broader Central Asian region. He frequently comments for media outlets on current events both in Central Asia and in the Uyghur region of China. Roberts earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. @RobertsReport
Betsy Henderson is Radio Free Asia’s Chief Strategy Officer. Henderson was RFA's founding Director of Audience Research, establishing RFA’s capacity to monitor its impact and gather audience feedback in Asia’s most repressive societies. In addition to conducting representative surveys and qualitative studies, Ms. Henderson developed unprecedented research programs for North Korea and China’s Tibetan and Uyghur regions. Since 2003, Henderson has overseen RFA’s journalism training and program evaluation, and now also is responsible for digital analytics, internal goal setting, impact reporting, and performance tracking. A former Associated Press reporter, Ms. Henderson lived and worked in southern China and in Taiwan and speaks Mandarin fluently. Her graduate studies at Columbia and University of Michigan focused on journalism, Chinese politics, and research methodology.
Alim Seytoff is the Director of Radio Free Asia's Uyghur Service. During his tenure, which began in early 2017, RFA Uyghur broke the story of the mass arbitrary detentions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region -- and has remained on the forefront of covering this human rights crisis since. Prior to RFA, Alim served as the Executive Director for the Uyghur Human Rights Project and was President of the Uyghur American Association. He has appeared on BBC, CNN and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, speaking about Uyghur related issues. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and has briefed U.S officials on the subject. Alim holds a BA in Chinese Studies from Xinjiang University and a BA in Broadcast Journalism from Southern Adventist University. He has a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the Robertson School of Government at Regent University. Alim received his Juris Doctor degree from Regent University School of Law in 2006.
Maya Wang is the senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. Wang has researched and written extensively on the use of torture, arbitrary detention, human rights defenders, civil society, disability rights, and women’s rights in China. She is also an expert on human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. In recent years, her original research on China’s use of technology for mass surveillance, including the use of biometrics, artificial intelligence and big data, has helped galvanize international attention on these developments in China and globally. Wang has published on major international media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, ChinaFile, the Diplomat, the Guardian , and has been frequently quoted by international media including the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg News, and the Associated Press. Cover illustration by Yette Su.
Tuesday, February 2 , 2021
10:00 - 11:00 AM (EST)
[ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0014K3Z9QtkjCDCS_zB1s-E5M58L8nZyr3NM7Vx05rHVVO-… | Click here to join Webex event ]
Event Number (access code): [ callto:120 804 6737 | 120 804 6737 ]
Event password: CAP0202
[ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=0014K3Z9QtkjCDCS_zB1s-E5M58L8nZyr3NM7Vx05rHVVO-… | RSVP ]
This event is on the record, open to the public, and will be recorded.
The Central Asia Program
Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
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Rohit Mahajan
Vice President of Communications and External Relations
Radio Free Asia
