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WORLD NEWS Tuesday 19 March 2019

China says 13,000 Xinjiang ‘terrorists’ arrested since 2014

Associated Press people in Xinjiang,” Poon
BEIJING (AP) — China has said.
arrested nearly 13,000 peo- Poon cited the many fami-
ple it describes as terrorists lies that have lost contact
and has broken up hun- with relatives who are sus-
dreds of “terrorist gangs” pected of having been de-
in Xinjiang since 2014, the tained.
government said in a re- “It’s simply not normal at
port Monday issued to all for people losing con-
counter criticism of intern- tact with their relatives if
ment camps and other op- they are merely receiving
pressive security in the tra- ‘vocational training’ as
ditionally Islamic region. the Chinese government
The lengthy report said the claims,” Poon said.
government’s efforts have China’s reputation for tak-
curbed religious extremism ing a hard line against re-
but gave little evidence of ligious minorities, and Mus-
what crimes had occurred. lims in particular, continues
The far northwestern region to draw global attention.
is closed to outsiders, but The man arrested in last
former residents and ac- week’s New Zealand
tivists abroad say mere ex- mosque attacks said in his
pressions of Muslim identity online manifesto that Chi-
are punished. In this Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, residents watch a convoy of security personnel and armored na is the nation that most
Criticism has grown over vehicles in a show of force through central Kashgar in western China’s Xinjiang region. aligns with his political and
China’s internment of an Associated Press social values.q
estimated 1 million Uighurs seized and more than Monday’s report sought
(WEE-gurs) and members 30,000 people were pun- to underplay Islam’s role
of other predominantly ished for taking part in al- in the region’s historical
Muslim ethnic groups. Chi- most 5,000 “illegal religious makeup, saying that while
na describes the camps activities,” the report said. It it “cannot be denied that
as vocational training cen- said 345,229 copies of “ille- Xinjiang received the influ-
ters and says participa- gal religious publicity mate- ence of Islamic culture,”
tion is voluntary. Former rials” were also seized. that did not change the
detainees say they were China’s government has “objective fact” that Xinji-
held in abusive conditions, spent decades trying to ang’s culture is a facet of
forced to renounce Islam suppress pro-indepen- Chinese culture.
and swear allegiance to dence sentiment in the “Islam is not the natural
China’s ruling Communist region fueled in part by faith of the Uighurs and oth-
Party. frustration over an influx of er ethnicities, nor is it their
The camps sprang up over migrants from China’s Han only faith,” the report said.
the past two years at ex- majority. Beijing authorities China has sought to de-
traordinary speed and on say extremists there have fend itself against charges
a massive scale, as moni- ties to foreign terror groups of cultural genocide, paint-
tored by satellite imagery. but have given little evi- ing its critics as biased and
China maintains a massive dence to support that. seeking to smear China’s
security presence in Xin- Despite the region’s reli- reputation and contain its
jiang and efforts to inde- gious, linguistic and cultural rise as a global power.
pendently verify claims by differences with the rest of The report shows the
Uighur activists are routinely country, China says Xinji- “vague and broad defini-
blocked. ang has been Chinese ter- tion of ‘terrorism’ and ‘ex-
The new report said “law- ritory since ancient times. tremism’ by the Chinese
based de-radicalization” Experts and Uighur activists government,” said Patrick
in Xinjiang has curbed the believe the camps are part Poon, a China researcher
rise and spread of religious of an aggressive govern- for Amnesty International.
extremism. ment campaign to erode “It’s exactly because of
It said 1,588 terrorist gangs the identities of the Central the Chinese government’s
have been crushed and Asian groups who called arbitrary and vague defi-
12,995 terrorists seized since the region home long be- nition of these terms that
2014. Over that time, 2,052 fore waves of Han migrants leads to mass arbitrary de-
explosive devices were arrived in recent decades. tention of many ordinary