NEW: "Prevent escapes": Leaked documents detail brutal reality of China’s ‘re-education’ camps for Muslims bit.ly/2sdJK6o
A leaked manual for the implementation of these re-education camps reviewed by VICE News lays out in specific, brutal detail exactly how the Communist Party of China is instructing local officials to run the re-education camps. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
The goal is to assimilate long-marginalized religious and ethnic minorities into Han Chinese culture, language, and beliefs — including unquestioning support for The People’s Party. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
The classified, eight-page document was apparently written by the internal Party Political and Legal Affairs Commission in a subregion of Xinjiang and dated 2017 — around when China began running the camps. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
It provides detailed directives on “standardizing the work” of the re-education camps, essentially acting as an operating manual. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
The document is believed to have been leaked by an official working for the Chinese government in Xinjiang. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
The official said the world needed to see the document, and expressed their desire for an end to the difficult times facing Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority being sent to the camps. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
“This document is the smoking gun that tells us these vocational training centers are in fact prisons,” said James Millward, a China scholar and historian at Georgetown University. 
It is incredibly dangerous for Chinese officials to leak documents — if caught, they would likely face imprisonment. The fact that classified documents are getting out suggests that some officials are deeply disturbed by Xinjiang’s camps. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
VICE News has since been told by two sources that government officials have been instructed to burn all paper documents linked to Xinjiang, and to restrict access to the remaining digital copies that should now only be held on one computer per locality. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
The document was written in a large subregion of Xinjiang. It’s unclear how widely it was disseminated. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
But certain instructions say they should be followed by “all localities.” And the guidance is in line with what survivors have told VICE News about life in these internment camps. bit.ly/2sdJK6o
