
China is detaining a million Uighur muslims in a secret camp - crunchlibrarian
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45147972
======
throwando208818
Whatever you do, don't ever compare President Xi Jingping to Winnie the Pooh:
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/winnie-the-pooh-
film-c...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/winnie-the-pooh-film-
christopher-robin-banned-in-china/10088446)

Don't even think about it.

There's definitely an uptick of Chinese gov't influence operations on Reddit,
HN might be a bit under the radar but just in case...

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2018/62187...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2018/621875/EPRS_ATA\(2018\)621875_EN.pdf)

If you're a connected young prince w/ a cushy party/govt job in China you're
ballin' and life is goooood.

But if you're Joe-Shmoe you're kinda screwed, like with a most nightmare
regimes it's the worker bees who get hit worst.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _If you 're a connected young prince w/ a cushy party/govt job in China
> you're ballin' and life is goooood_

I’ve recently been reading a lot about the late Roman republic. Cycles move
faster nowadays. These people have a lot to worry about, and rational reasons
to live fast.

------
sonnyblarney
It's odd that China denies the existence of these things, because as of late,
they usually do some logical jujitsu to validate their actions, whatever they
are.

To deny something that exists, and if there is open evidence that it does
exists, really has to hurt one's own credibility.

The treatment of Tibetans is no secret, the Chinese use the 'look how
Americans treated Aboriginals in the 19th century' which is bizarre, but not
worse than denial.

Saudi Arabia is in a spat over human rights with Canada right now trying to
indicate that Canada is a 'human rights abuser' given the number of homeless
there.

But to just 'deny deny deny' is bad in the era of the Internet.

My bet is that average Chinese people could be propagandized into the line on
Tibet, but if they find that there are 1M people in camps, and their
government has been denying it, well, it just kills any credibility the
government may have.

~~~
68c12c16
I feel the human rights issue in Tibet could be more complicated than you
think...For instance, there was an article from the Guardian describes some
aspects of the old traditional system in Tibet before the Chinese government
took control of the region in 1950s [1],

Some extreme cruelties were practiced in Tibet before 1950, including
mutilation as punishment and using human body parts for constructing religious
instruments. The latter is documented in an article published in 1923 [2].

\--

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-
china-feudalism)

[2]
[https://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/skulls.pdf](https://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/skulls.pdf)

~~~
jonhendry18
Yes, that's the Chinese government propaganda line that always gets trotted
out.

In fact, the writer actually states:

"Last December, Ye Xiaowen, head of China's administration for religious
affairs, published a piece in the state-run China Daily newspaper that,
although propaganda, rings true. " And argues some of the same points from the
propaganda piece.

The author of the piece you link to formerly worked for the China Daily in
Beijing, run by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China.

Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily obtained via death by natural
causes, right? Especially before the adoption of antibiotics and vaccination?

Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are left out in a charnel ground
and picked clean by wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is difficult
and cremation would be a waste of scarce fuel.) I suspect they have a
different attitude about the dead and their parts than you.

~~~
68c12c16

      > the author of the piece you link to formerly worked for 
      > the China Daily in Beijing, run by the Publicity 
      > Department of the Communist Party of China.
    

Yes, I read about that too in the comment section of the Guardian article...I
just feel that if there are some facts in that article, those facts are still
facts even if the article was written by Satan himself, right? But of course,
the organization of the facts is important and sometimes crucial too, but then
it would require each individual reader to parse and incorporate those
knowledge...But again wouldn't this be applicable to any book or any article,
even if those written by the most famous or most authoritative figures -- if
that's what people value in them?

    
    
      > Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily 
      > obtained via death by natural causes, right? 
      > Especially before the adoption of antibiotics 
      > and vaccination?
      > 
      >  Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are 
      > left out in a charnel ground and picked clean by 
      > wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is 
      > difficult and cremation would be a waste of scarce   
      > fuel.) I suspect they have a different attitude 
      > about the dead and their parts than you.
    

Yes, I am aware of that and I respect their decision, if this is out of their
own volition and informed mind...I am not an expert on such traditions...but
as I read in the article that I previously cited as [2], it states that, on
page 2,

    
    
      There are trumpets made of human thigh-bones, 
      the bones of criminals of those who have died a 
      violent death being preferred for this purpose.
    

And as another instance, on page 17,

    
    
      the bones of Father Brieux killed in 1881 [happened 
      in Tibet] were 1881 were taken from his grave, and 
      his skull was made into a drinking-cup.
    

There are a few other instances in that article if you want to know more...I
will skip them here for the sake of brevity...

My point is the matter could be more complicated than either you or I
currently think...I am not an adherent of the Chinese government
propaganda...but as averse to those propaganda as I am, this does not mean
that there is no information or valuable points in their propaganda...I also
hate to have to dig out knowledge from propaganda, but if that helps me to get
closer to any fact or truth, then I feel I have to do that, instead of simply
throwing all their words away without any discretion...

BTW, the article [2] I cited was published in 1923 by Berthold Laufer ,
supposedly before CCP's Propaganda Division became full-fledged enough to be
capable to have any influence on that...

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Yes, they were using bones of dead people to construct ritual objects. You do
realize that actually killing someone for that purpose would be considered an
insanely stupid act causing a rebirth in hell? And how on Earth this custom
can explain the Chinese invasion and the atrocities committed until this day?

You know what life is in Tibet for Tibetans? The horrors are so great that
once a while they prefer to publicly kill themselves, suffering a terrible
death rather than going on like this. That's the sad reality of living under
the Chinese rule. There were many things wrong in ancient Tibet, such as
feudal fights, the abuse of power by the central government and so on, but
nothing of this justifies the invasion and the current treatment of Tibetans
by the Chinese.

------
simpsond
I traveled around Xinjiang in 2010. I was in Urumqi during the one year
anniversary of the 2009 Urumqi riots and there was some tensions. Armored and
armed guard units were walking the streets, and the Uyghur people we talked
with were very nervous. There was segregation at a business level there. The
main strip for food was Uyghur on one side, Hon on the other. At the time, it
seemed unsettling, but people were getting on with their lives.

Looking back on it, I realize I was part of a joined agenda. We stayed in a
Military hotel, and had a driver/escort who was special forces. We had to get
permission to do the things we did. We wanted to stay with a Kazakh family,
but were denied and told that we could stay with another Kazakh family. It was
all pretty wild, and my friend kept in touch with a Uyghur we met, and she
desperately wanted out of Xinjiang... and was essentially living in fear.

I didn't hear about camps then, but I wouldn't put it past the government.

~~~
flyrain
Are you talking about Xinjiang?

~~~
arcticbull
That’s where Urumqi is

~~~
kwk1
I think the point of confusion was:

> I traveled around _Xianjian_ in 2010.

instead of Xinjiang.

------
dghughes
China has detained over three million people in an even bigger area called
Tibet.

A few years ago there was video of people; men, women and children desperately
trying to escape over a mountain into Nepal. Long lines of people on snow
mountain peaks. Chinese military snipers picked them off one by one.

~~~
est
Use your common sense. Watch the video again. If a group of people was _shot_
, they'd more likely to lay down immediately, not continue climbing. It's
mostly likely that guy was tripped into the snow by accident.

~~~
will4274
China admitted to killing one person (a 17 year old nun, at that) after the
video evidence came out.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangpa_La_shooting_incident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangpa_La_shooting_incident)

~~~
est
Admitted according to wikipedia? China never admits nothing.

The video is a solid evidence of one people fall down. The shooting maybe
happened before or after the video.

------
anoncow201852
Is there any other news that provides more details about who is being selected
to be in these camps?

Are these criminals that have broken some law and are in prison?

I know 1 million seems like a huge number, but to put things in perspective,
the there are over 2 million African Americans in "camps."

I understand there is a huge difference and I'm not saying they are remotely
the same. I've just been more careful in recent years because these same news
organizations seem to downplay terrorist attacks in China [1].

1\. [https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-same-act-in-Kunming-
called-...](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-same-act-in-Kunming-called-a-
knife-attack-but-in-London-a-terror-attack-by-the-BBC-What-is-the-reason-for-
the-calls-of-knife-wielding-versus-terrorism-by-CNN)

------
greenyoda
Extensive discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17734840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17734840)

------
crunchlibrarian
I don't know if this is really HN fodder or not, but I noticed it immediately
after the announcement that Google is now moving into China and complying with
everything.

~~~
astebbin
There is relevance to state-of-the-art surveillance technologies deployed in
Xinjiang:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/china-s-
xinjiang-p...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/china-s-xinjiang-
province-a-surveillance-state-unlike-any-the-world-has-ever-
seen-a-1220174.html)

------
jorblumesea
Horrific to think this is an up and coming super power. What kind of standards
does this set on a international scale? What kind of example does this send to
surrounding nations?

I get the US is not exactly the best leader in human rights, but the
transgressions of another is a tu quoque logical fallacy.

I wonder at what point do we sanction them on human rights concerns, if that
is even possible at this point. If it's not physical genocide, at the minimum
it's cultural genocide.

~~~
Karishma1234
Oh the western people are scarred of China's horrors ? China is not doing
anything that USA has not done in past. Putting people we don't like in camps
(Japanese Americans), conducting experiments on people we thought were less
than humans (Blacks) and so on.

So I think the inspiration is westerns societies.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Scale and ability to learn from the mistakes of the past matters.

~~~
Karishma1234
USA is probably civilised only in last 60 years or so. Otherwise the country
was far too overtly racist and oppressive to minorities.

Uighur muslims are just a million or so and minuscule on larger scale. Also,
it might be better to de-radicalize them now before they start bombing your
cities. For example if USA had not armed Osama Bin Laden, 9/11 was avoidable.
China is taking precautionary measures to avoid future wars and terrorist
attacks like 9/11.

------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17734840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17734840)

In addition, you rewrote the title to make it more sensational and
tendentious. Editorializing like that breaks the site guidelines. Please
don't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
whatyoucantsay
The story you linked above, with over 170 upvotes and less than a day old
appears nowhere on the first 5 pages of HN.

It's hard to imagine HN suppressing any similar story from a similarly
credible source about a million people being detained in any predominantly
white or English-speaking country.

There's a lot of money for YC to make in China, but this is _a million human
lives_. Please at least try to think about that.

(And yes, the story is certainly drawing flags from Chinese patriots and
wumaodang alike)

~~~
dang
That doesn't reflect how HN is moderated at all. Your claim about who's
flagging is equally made-up. Edit: the claim in your profile is also
completely untrue.

In fact you have a long history of making things up about HN moderation,
posting them, and continuing to repeat the false claims when corrected. You
also have a long history of using HN for political battle about China. If you
keep abusing the site this way, we're eventually going to ban you. Dramatic
allegations about "censorship" and "suppression" don't immunize you against
having to follow the rules like other users.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Seeing good-faith comments which break no rules I'm aware of being flagged is
truly disappointing.

It's your forum and if you choose rule by law rather than rule of law, I am
powerless to improve the situation. In ten years time, if you remember any of
this, I hope that you might have a new perspective this topic.

~~~
dang
Users flagged the comment. No moderator touched it.

It's time you stopped posting these tedious harangues, which baselessly
insinuate corruption while sneakily pretending to be fair-minded ("cannot
prove any wrong-doing of course").

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Nothing sneaky is involved. Like you and most people, I believe I _am_ fair
minded. There's no pretending involved, either.

It is very surprising users would have even _seen_ a comment buried deep in an
old thread within minutes, but it is possible and I'm inclined to believe you
in this case (though the next most likely case is a 五毛党 vote brigade). Nothing
in the comment was a violation of guidelines, nor was the previous comment at
all what it was maligned as.

That said, it's now clear that the very attempt "to voice minority opinions I
believe to be true" is counter to the goals of the forum. While they're ideas
and issues where one voice has a relative chance of making a difference,
they're also very likely to lead to flamewars. It's hard to let go of the
human rights issues, especially those I've seen some of first hand, but it's
not productive here.

I'd be lying if I said YC's recent moves weren't terrifying, but I'll give up
on voicing it in this way.

------
jostmey
How are there not more pictures of this secret camp? How has it been kept a
secret for so long?

~~~
danielvf
Camps, not camp. Here are some:

[https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/list-of-re-education-
camps-i...](https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/list-of-re-education-camps-in-
xinjiang-%E6%96%B0%E7%96%86%E5%86%8D%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E9%9B%86%E4%B8%AD%E8%90%A5%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8-99720372419c)

------
07d046
I'm happy to see more headlines about this, because this doesn't seem to be
getting the attention it deserves.

Here is one account from a camp:

> “Xi Jinping is great! The Communist Party is great! I deserve punishment for
> not understanding that only President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party can
> help me,” was one of the refrains that a Uyghur woman who was in a centre
> last fall, was forced to regularly repeat.

> The woman, whose name is not being used by The Globe and Mail for her
> protection, was put through regular self-criticism sessions. Part of the
> content was cultural. “My soul is infected with serious diseases,” she would
> repeat. “There is no God. I don’t believe in God. I believe in the Communist
> Party.”

> Other content was more explicitly political. Day after day she would say out
> loud that she was a traitor, a separatist and a terrorist.

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-former-
detaine...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-former-detainees-
recount-abuse-in-chinese-re-education-centres/)

This story was published yesterday:

> She was one of the most revered academics from the Uighur ethnic minority in
> far western China. She had written extensively and lectured across China and
> the world to explain and celebrate Uighurs’ varied traditions. Her research
> was funded by Chinese government ministries and praised by other scholars.

> Then she disappeared.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/asia/china-
xinjiang...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-
rahile-dawut.html)

~~~
Inconel
Genuine question for someone with a better understanding of psychology, or the
kind of propaganda employed by authoritarian regimes, but what purpose does
this serve? I can't imagine you can actually convince someone to suddenly like
the CCP or Xi Jinping through something like this. Is it simply a tool to show
who's in charge?

~~~
spacehunt
They drown you with extremist views so that when you encounter softer but
still pro-China views, you'll be more accepting of them because they seem more
"reasonable".

~~~
striking
Some people call this "moving the Overton window":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

------
Karishma1234
The interesting thing about whole this Chinese persecution of Muslims is the
complete silence from their Islamic friends such as Pakistan and Saudi. I
would expect America's friend Saudi to be very vocal critic of China's
actions. But so far everyone has been silent.

~~~
petre
You expect another totalitarian regime to care about people? I don't know
about Pakistan, but in SA women just got the right to drive cars. In 2018.

~~~
Karishma1234
> care about people?

No. But I think Saudi deeply cares about Islamic demography in every country
including USA. Saudi invests billions of dollars in countries like India to
make sure Muslims remain radical and under the control of sharia and women on
street wear hijab. In my village for example an international NGO funded by
Saudi pays INR 800 ($12) to women who wear hijaab.

------
myf01d
I hope that I see for once before I die a single report by BBC of what Muslims
from Indonesia to Mali are doing with minorities, gays, even other Muslims
from different sects other than Sunnis. I hope that BBC does a single report
about the extremist Muslim neighborhoods in the UK and other European
countries. I hope that I can express my opinions in this website without
getting massively downvoted within seconds.

~~~
Zaheer
What are you trying to achieve with that statement? Responding to an article
about Muslims being persecuted with examples of some Muslims persecuting
others is utterly useless. It's like responding to an article on 9/11 with
examples of atrocious things the KKK has done. You're making a pathetic
attempt to justify what China is doing. Downvoting you is exactly what should
happen.

~~~
myf01d
while I am not even white or from the west myself, but comparing 9/11 or
extremist muslims with KKK is just idiotic to say the least. I am not making
any justification for China btw, it's the biggest dictatorship on Earth, what
do you expect?

------
api
A million.

We had a few migrants in much nicer camps than this and there was moral
outrage.

~~~
mikeash
Implying we’re fine as long as we’re better than China?

~~~
gwbas1c
Perhaps our (American) freedom of the press helps prevent problems like this
from growing?

Our government can't keep it a secret. The Chinese government can.

------
juskrey
Characteristically, when videos of muslims cutting christian and "wrong type"
of muslim heads are openly circulating internet, UN shows no slightest
concern.

~~~
ChristianBundy
Nice post history. Please troll elsewhere.

