Since 2017, there have been many allegations of human rights abuses in what China calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, known by dissidents as East Turkestan. This disagreement over the region’s name stems from a long history of on-and-off Chinese involvement and control of the region. For the past two millennia, the area has seen instability and constantly changing rule.
Sadly, the area has been ruled by outsiders for much of the time since that disaster, including the Mongols under Genghis Khan and the Chinese numerous times, including today. As you can probably imagine, at least some of the people living there, once mostly Uyghurs, aren’t happy with being under Chinese rule.
Those who get the government’s attention don’t just get a friendly knock and a conversation to see what’s going on and rule out terrorism. The government has wide-ranging authority to detain, monitor, and restrict people suspected of terrorism, with no due process or opportunity to refute the accusation. If they decide you’re a potential terrorist or extremist, they can put you in a “Vocational Education and Training Center,” which is in reality a prison and re-education camp.
Similar measures have been implemented across the province, but usually to a lower severity than in the prisons and re-education camps. Religion and culture is heavily regulated, and people know that they can disappear if they engage in their normal religious and cultural practices. This leads to them being abandoned in many cases. Religious sites and facilities have been destroyed, as well.