East Turkistan (Uyghurs)
China has long restricted the faith of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, from the Ghulja crackdown of 1997 to the sweeps and disappearances after the Urumqi unrest of 2009. From 2017 the state built a network of camps and prisons: satellite research found more than 380 suspected detention facilities, and the UN says more than a million people have been held. Leaked police files from Konasheher county show over 12% of adults interned in 2018. About 16,000 mosques were damaged or destroyed, and shrines such as Ordam and Imam Asim were erased or stripped. Scholars such as Ilham Tohti and Rahile Dawut are serving life sentences, and the Qur'an translator Muhammad Salih Hajim died in custody. In 2022 the UN Human Rights Office said the detentions may constitute crimes against humanity; China rejects all of this.
Key numbers
Who is responsible
The government of the People's Republic of China and the Xinjiang regional authorities, police, People's Armed Police and courts; former regional party secretary Chen Quanguo urged guards to shoot escapees (Xinjiang Police Files).
Timeline
- 1997 Security forces fire on Uyghur protesters in Ghulja
- 2009 Kashgar Old City demolition begins; sweeps and disappearances after Urumqi unrest
- 2014 Ilham Tohti jailed for life
- 2017 "De-extremification" rules ban beards and veils; mass internment begins
- 2018 Kargilik mosque razed; Muhammad Salih Hajim dies in custody; Konasheher interns 23,000
- 2020 ASPI maps 380+ facilities and 16,000 damaged or destroyed mosques
- 2022 Xinjiang Police Files leaked; UN says crimes against humanity possible
- 2023 Rahile Dawut's life sentence confirmed
Records (19)
Ghulja (Yining) crackdown
Chinese security forces opened fire on Uyghur demonstrators in Ghulja on 5–6 February 1997. Amnesty International later wrote that hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed or seriously injured, and that many arrested were beaten or tortured; earlier it reported dozens killed or injured.
Source: Amnesty International UK: No justice for victims of 1997 crackdown in Gulja · RFA: Uyghurs still push for accountability 25 years after Ghulja Massacre
Demolition of Kashgar Old City
From late February 2009 officials began moving nearly 50,000 families out of Kashgar's old city under a 3-billion-yuan plan to demolish traditional Uyghur homes in its centre.
Source: RFA: Demolition Plan for Kashgar
Urumqi July 2009: sweeps and disappearances
After the 5 July 2009 unrest in Urumqi (official toll 197 dead, most of them Han), police, the People's Armed Police and the army swept the Uyghur districts of Erdaoqiao and Saimachang. Human Rights Watch documented the enforced disappearance of at least 43 Uyghur men and boys and said the real number is likely much higher.
43 detained
Ilham Tohti jailed for life
Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment for "separatism" by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court on 23 September 2014 after a two-day closed trial; the sentence was upheld on 21 November 2014.
1 detained
Source: CPJ: Uighur blogger Ilham Tohti sentenced to life in prison · Scholars at Risk: Ilham Tohti
Xinjiang camp and prison network
Satellite research by ASPI found more than 380 suspected detention facilities, 61 expanded between July 2019 and July 2020 and 14 still under construction. The UN says more than one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic people have been held.
1,000,000 detained
Source: Al Jazeera: China running 380 detention centres in Xinjiang · Wikipedia: Xinjiang Data Project (ASPI)
Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center, Dabancheng
The facility at Dabancheng covers about 220 acres; AP estimated it can hold about 10,000 people. Commissioned in 2017 as a "vocational skills education and training center", it was enlarged in 2019 with buildings nearly a mile long and converted to a pretrial detention centre.
Source: VOA/AP: AP looks inside China's largest detention center
Tekes County Detention Centre
Photos in the Xinjiang Police Files from Tekes County Detention Centre show detainees in basement cells under guard, a man shackled to a "tiger chair" during interrogation in 2018, and anti-escape drills.
Source: ICIJ: Xinjiang Police Files
About 16,000 mosques damaged or destroyed
ASPI satellite research found about 16,000 mosques (65% of the total) damaged or destroyed, mostly since 2017, about 8,500 of them demolished outright. About 30% of important shrines, cemeteries and pilgrimage sites were demolished and 28% more damaged. China rejects the findings.
8,500 mosques & sacred places destroyed
Source: The China Project: China has demolished thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, report says (ASPI) · Wikipedia: Xinjiang Data Project (ASPI)
Xinjiang "de-extremification" regulations
Regulations in force from 1 April 2017 banned "abnormal" beards and face-covering veils across Xinjiang, along with religious-only marriages, refusing state TV and keeping children out of state schools.
Source: Al Jazeera: China Uighurs: Ban on long beards, veils in Xinjiang
Muhammad Salih Hajim dies in custody
Muhammad Salih Hajim, 82, the scholar who made a state-approved Uyghur translation of the Qur'an, died in police custody in January 2018, about 40 days after being detained with his daughter and other relatives.
1 killed
Source: RFA: Uyghur Muslim Scholar Dies in Chinese Police Custody · UHRP: Uyghur Muslim Scholar Dies in Chinese Police Custody
Rahile Dawut serving a life sentence
Folklore professor Rahile Dawut disappeared in December 2017. In September 2023 Dui Hua confirmed she is serving a life sentence for "splittism" after a closed trial; her appeal was rejected.
1 detained
Source: HRW: Chinese court imposes life sentence on Uyghur scholar · RFA: Life sentence for Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut confirmed
Imam Asim shrine stripped
At the Imam Asim shrine in the desert near Hotan the mosque was demolished and the flags, offerings and wooden railings removed, leaving only the tomb, by 2018–2019.
1 mosques & sacred places destroyed
Source: Made in China Journal (Rian Thum): The Spatial Cleansing of Xinjiang
Konasheher county internment (Police Files)
Leaked police records from Konasheher county show about 23,000 people, more than 12% of adults, in some form of internment in 2018; 5,074 mug shots were taken there between January and July 2018.
23,000 detained
Source: ICIJ: Xinjiang Police Files · Wikipedia: Xinjiang Police Files
Keriya Aitika mosque gatehouse razed
Satellite images show the northern gatehouse of the Aitika mosque in Keriya, and a smaller building, removed between 19 and 20 March 2018; the prayer hall appears intact. Chinese state media say the site was turned into a plaza.
Source: Bellingcat: Are historic mosques in Xinjiang being destroyed?
Imam Je'firi Sadiq shrine destroyed
The Imam Je'firi Sadiq shrine on a dune about 75 km from Niya was destroyed between 10 and 17 March 2018, according to satellite imagery analysed by historian Rian Thum.
1 mosques & sacred places destroyed
Source: Made in China Journal (Rian Thum): The Spatial Cleansing of Xinjiang
Kargilik mosque demolished
Satellite imagery shows that a large part of the Kargilik mosque complex, including its gatehouse, was removed between September and December 2018.
1 mosques & sacred places destroyed
Source: Bellingcat: Are historic mosques in Xinjiang being destroyed?
Ordam Padishah shrine erased
The Ordam Padishah shrine in the desert outside Yengisar, a pilgrimage site closed to mass pilgrimage since 1997, is gone in satellite imagery, the site left empty.
1 mosques & sacred places destroyed
Source: Made in China Journal (Rian Thum): The Spatial Cleansing of Xinjiang · Wikipedia: Xinjiang Data Project (ASPI)
UN: detention may be crimes against humanity
On 31 August 2022 the UN Human Rights Office found that the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim groups "may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity".
Source: OHCHR assessment of human rights concerns in Xinjiang · Amnesty: Anniversary of UN's damning Xinjiang report
Urumqi apartment fire under lockdown
Ten people died in a fire in a locked-down Urumqi apartment block on 24 November 2022, after more than 100 days of lockdown. Many blamed lockdown measures for slowing rescue; officials denied it. Uyghur groups said most victims were Uyghur.
10 killed
Source: Wikipedia: 2022 Ürümqi fire · VOA: Killed in apartment fire in northwest China's Xinjiang