China: The Uyghur Drama

Torture in huge internment camps, disappearances, forced labour, "re-education" of children and adults, mass sterilizations, generalized surveillance and destruction of memorial sites, including cemeteries: China's policy in Xinjiang towards the Uighurs, a population of 11 million Turkic-speaking people with a Muslim majority, is akin to genocide. In this land of the "Celestial Mountains" in the west of the country, rich in resources and a strategic gateway to the new Silk Roads cherished by Xi Jinping, the number of people arbitrarily detained is estimated at more than one million. For years, using the pretext of a supposed fight against radicalism and poverty, the Communist Party has been systematically persecuting this ethnic group, aiming to eradicate its culture.