Published 04:13 IST, November 26th 2019
Xinjiang: Germany asks China to allow officials after fresh evidence
Germany called on China to provide access to the UN human rights commissioner and international experts after finding fresh evidence against detention camps.
Amidst the surfacing of evidence that proves that Chinese authorities have been inflicting atrocities on minority Muslims community in the region through their detention camp facilities, Germany on Monday called on China to provide access to the UN human rights commissioner and international experts to Xinjiang province.
German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr, while speaking at a media briefing, said, "We demand that the Chinese side improve the human rights situation and provide access thereto the UN human rights commissioner and international experts."
Leaked documents help bring out new evidence
Abebah's remarks come after International Consortium of Investigative Journalists- a global network of investigative journalists based in Washington- released The China Cables, showing how Uighurs Muslims are locked up, indoctrinated and punished inside the detention camps. Meanwhile, it also came to light that the Chinese government has consistently claimed that the detention centres in Xinjiang offer voluntary education and training. The investigation has thus found new evidence which undermines Beijing's claims that the detention camps, that have been built across Xinjiang in the last three years, provide voluntary re-education purposes to counter extremism to the inmates who are detained without trial.
The investigation that opened new doors includes a nine-page memo sent out in 2017 by Zhu Hailun, the then deputy-secretary of Xinjiang's Communist Party and the region's top security official, to those who run the camps. The instructions in the evidence clearly point to the fact that authorities were ordered to run the camps as "high-security prisons", with strict discipline, punishments no escapes, and make remedial Mandarin studies as a top priority.
Additionally, it also surfaced that while strictness should be implemented in the camps, the guards should impose pervasive, round-the-clock video surveillance to prevent escapes. Further, inmates were also ordered to be kept isolated from the outside world and held to a strict scoring system that could determine when they might be released.
The leaked documents also talk about how the facilities were purposely shrouded in secrecy, with even employees banned from bringing in mobile phones. The Chinese government has also been proved to be using mass surveillance and a predictive-policing programme that analyses personal data.
(With ANI inputs)
Updated 05:01 IST, November 26th 2019