China's Uighur camps - BBC News

Now, documents seen by the BBC appear to provide a detailed look at how China handled hundreds of Muslims held in a network of internment

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. The information includes personal details of the Weger community who were detained for reasons such as wearing a headscarf or applying for a passport or accidentally visiting foreign Internet sites. Critics say the documents are evidence of a campaign by Chinese authorities against the winger whose home is in the western Shinjang region, but China has always denied any form of religious discrimination, our diplomatic correspondent James Landale The story that the BBC has been reporting for two years about

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like these in western China is that around a million little girls and other Muslim minorities have been detained without trial.

China says the sick here learned Chinese and Communist Party doctrine as part of an attempt to combat. extremism and terrorism, but a leaked document seen by the BBC suggests these camps are part of a comprehensive crackdown on religious practice. In one hundred and thirty-seven pages, the spreadsheet explains in great detail why more than 300 Regas from a particular county in Xinjiang province were considered for detention. Some were detained because they had applied for a passport, had relatives abroad or had arrived. unintentionally to a foreign website while searching the Internet others were detained because they used to grow a long beard or used to wear a veil because they had a minor religious infection some were guilty of violations of birth control policies or simply being a person unreliable the document was passed through intermediaries to Abdullah Hebb a weaker exile living in Amsterdam who decided to make it public and of course I am worried about the safety of my family and friends, but if everyone remains silent because they want to protect themselves and their families, we will never prevent these crimes from being committed, the document includes data collected by officials of Weig's Communist Party about the private and religious life, what they eat and wear when they pray or go to the mosque and details of about 3,000 relatives, friends and neighbors with whom they may be considered guilty by association.

Some of the data in the document is difficult to verify 100%, but experts who have examined it told me they believe it is genuine. The entire internment campaign and the reasoning behind it reveals a very detailed and in itself internally coherent worldview, which we could attribute to the ideology of a medieval witch hunt that greatly fears anything religious. Last year, China invited chambers to reclaim these fields. They were simply vocational education centers and today the country's embassy in London insisted that the only people detained were those convicted of illegal or criminal acts related to terrorism and religious extremism and denied targeting any specific religion or ethnic group james landau bbc

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