Inside Chinese Camps Thought To Be Detaining A Million Muslim Uighurs

(NBC News) Keir Simmons Oct. 4 2019 7:57 AM MOYU COUNTY China In a classroom in far western China a dozen adults wearing white lab coats sit at a long table textbooks on animal husbandry open in front of them. The din of chickens and geese and a bucolic mural of cows belie the fact that the students are in one of a vast network of camps in Xinjiang a region that is home to more than 10 million Muslim Uighurs. Around 10 percent of the Uighur population of Xinjiang is locked up according to the U.S. government and human rights organizations. The Chinese Communist Party maintains these centers are a crucial part of its effort to counter terror extremism and separatism. Buayixiemu Abulizi director of the Moyu County Vocational Education and Training Center in Hotan Prefecture in the southwestern corner of Xinjiang made it clear the role of the centers is to change the minds and thoughts of those who are forced to live there. If we leave the terrorism thoughts to be developed it is very easy to have riots or other issues. We prevent this from happening" he told NBC News in early September. Our center is to prevent terrorism thoughts from happening." International rights groups charge that Chinese authorities are actually engaging in mass arbitrary detention torture and mistreatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch a non-profit group based in New York has alleged rampant abuses" including torture and unfair trials of the population. Gay McDougall a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination accused China last year with turning Xinjiang into something resembling a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy a sort of no-rights zone."