In China’s Xinjiang province, Uighur Muslims are detained and detained in what are effectively concentration camps, where they are subject to human rights abuses, including torture, forced sterilization and brainwashing.
But no one seems to be doing much about it internationally.
In this week’s episode of Worldly, Vox’s weekly international podcast, senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp, international defense and security journalist Alex Ward and foreign editor Jennifer Williams discuss why the international response to the Uighur crisis is has silenced and why it deserves so much more. Attention and action.
The Uighurs are a Muslim minority ethnic group that shares cultural and ethnic similarities with the nations of Central Asia. An estimated 11 million Uighurs live in Xinjiang, but up to 1 million Uighurs are detained in these camps.
In the camps, the Uighurs are reportedly facing massive sterilization, forced labor, sexual assault and intense surveillance. They are also said to be forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and to criticize or renounce their Muslim faith.
But China denies that abuses occur in what they euphemistically call “re-education camps.” China’s position is that the Uighurs are receiving “vocational training” to learn about Chinese history and culture, with the aim of defending themselves against terrorism by the Uighur separatist movements.
Earlier this week, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, when faced with drone images of what appear to be blindfolded Uighurs who were driven to a camp, again denied that the Uighurs are facing abuse and He claimed that the Uighurs live in harmony with other ethnic groups.
Despite these reports of human rights abuses committed against the Uighurs, international responses to the crisis have lacked urgency. The UK government has spoken out against the abuses and the United States has imposed sanctions on China, but there has been a lack of widespread action, including from Muslim-majority countries (such as Iran, which is currently finalizing an economic and security agreement for $ 400 billion with China).
To learn more about why China is detaining the Uighur people and what the international community should do about it, listen to the full episode of Mundane, which you can transmit below.
And subscribe to Mundane on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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