China has emphasized its re-education program in Xinjiang has contributed to preventing terrorism, brushing aside criticism that the Communist-led government has infringed on human rights of the Muslim Uyghur minority there.
Some foreign media were granted rare access by the All-China Journalists Association under the ruling Communist Party in mid-May to an exhibition titled, “The fight against terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang,” held in the far-western autonomous region.
A scene at a vocational training center is displayed at an exhibition in Urumqi, China, on May 14, 2021. (Kyodo)
China’s claims made at the exhibition, which justified its so-called re-education campaign, have come under fire from the United States and other democratic countries that have lambasted the alleged repression of the Uyghurs as amounting to a “genocide.”
China has been accused of mass detention of the Muslim Uyghur minority who oppose growing state surveillance under the re-education campaign in Xinjiang.
The leadership of President Xi Jinping has consistently said its internment camps are vocational training centers established to combat terrorism and religious extremism preemptively, urging the United States not to interfere in its “internal affairs.”
At the exhibition, photos with explanations in Chinese and English were displayed. One of them said thousands of terror attacks happened between 1990 and 2016 and caused a huge amount of victims.
Other photos and videos also showed citizens being assaulted by terrorists and dead, bloodied bodies lying on the ground.
A vocational camp in Xinjiang said it taught Mandarin Chinese and laws as well as provided job training to those who had been swayed by extremism and terrorism, adding that as a result, terror attacks have not taken place for a third straight year.
Related measures to thwart terrorists were completed as China was able to protect people from threats of terrorism, the camp said.
A female guide at the exhibition said China respects “the freedom of religion” of Muslim Uyghurs.
In March, meanwhile, the United States condemned the “genocide” that has occurred against the Muslim Uyghur minority in China in an annual human rights report issued for the first time under the administration of President Joe Biden, who took office in January.
The abusive treatment of ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang region includes the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberties of more than one million civilians, forced sterilization, coerced abortion, rape and forced labor, the 2020 report said.
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