China calls it re-education, but Uighur Muslims say its unbearable brutality

Nick Schifrin:

But in the name of pursuing terrorists, international researchers say China turned Xinjiang into an open air prison.

Local residents say police keep a close eye on all Uighurs, interrogate them wherever they go, check their documents every few feet, and forcibly collect DNA samples.

And researchers identify at least 85 camps and probably many more across Xinjiang. All of them are recently built. A barren field in August 2016 became, in one year, what researchers say is a former school turned into a camp with barricades and barbed wire.

Just six miles away, researchers say another camp started being built in early 2017. By late 2018, there were barricades, watch towers, and barbed wire enclosures, and more than a million square feet of buildings. The U.S. says more than a million Uighurs have disappeared into Chinese detention.

On the outskirts of Istanbul, Uighurs have been doing their own building to try and protect their identity. It's a school where hundreds of Uighur children are being raised and educated in Uighur language and history.

The children are all right, because their memories aren't formed. But the adults stare into the distance, trying, but failing, to forget.

Aqil Shamsky is the English teacher.

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