“Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.” That’s a quote from a Chinese government document on how to deal with the Uighur Muslim population of Xinjiang province.
The crackdown has been a decades-long effort in the wake of sometimes violent separatist and anti-government protests in the 90s. But China’s efforts to keep violent separatism under control appear to have shifted toward rooting out the Muslim identity altogether.
One of the pillars of China’s strategy is the forced “re-education” of Uighurs. There may be as many as two million people in these re-education camps, according to UN officials. Chinese government surveillance has made it nearly impossible to report on the crisis.
Isobel Yeung is a correspondent for VICE on HBO. She went undercover in Xinjiang to produce a 30-minute special episode of VICE News Tonight about China’s Uighur Muslims. She got interviews with locals (both Uighur and Han), footage of police drills, and a surreptitious peek into a “Kindergarten,” where Uighur children are sent for state indoctrination after their parents are detained in “re-education” camps.
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