A collection of recently leaked highly classified Chinese government documents referred to as the China cables sheds light on what goes on inside Chinese mass detention camps for Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities. While the Chinese government claims that people receive voluntary job training at the facilities, the China cables show that they are instead reeducation camps where detainees are subjected to brainwashing.
China fills the camps by arresting ethnic minorities before to ever commit a crime. Beijing uses data from its extensive mass surveillance program to select individuals for interrogation and detention. According to Adrian Zenz, a security expert specializing in the Xinjiang region where the Uighur minority is from, the China cables “confirm that this is a form of cultural genocide,” and that “from the onset, the Chinese government had a plan.”
Read more: Secret documents reveal how China mass detention camps work
