*BREAKING*: 3rd MAJOR LEAK from XJ - a detailed list of Uyghurs in re-education, w/ reasons for internment & why they should (not) be released! Same source as #ChinaCables. Unprecedented insight into the minutiae of Xinjiang's internment drive.
MY PAPER: jpolrisk.com/karakax
MY PAPER: jpolrisk.com/karakax
137 pages, 667 rows & personal details of 2,800 Uyghurs (23.4% of them in camps/prisons): the #KarakaxList presents the STRONGEST EVIDENCE to date that Beijing is actively persecuting normal practices of traditional religious beliefs, in direct violation of its own constitution.
These Uyghurs from Qaraqash (Karakax) are shown to be interned in four main camps, three of which could be identified on satellite and related government documents. I was able to verify the identities of 337 persons in the #KarakaxList through 1000s of secondary gov't documents.
The high level of detail in the #KarakaxList sheds new light on the genesis & timing of the internment campaign. Chen Quanguo heavily relied on village work teams for the investigative work to identify targets for internment. Teams were launched annually after Chinese New Year.
The #KarakaxList states dates of first internment, confirming the start of the re-education campaign in April 2017, four weeks after the full deployment of the village work teams -> explains campaign's timing! The data also shows internment peaks in the summers of 2017 and 2018.
Reasons for internment as shown in the #KarakaxList: many related to religious practice or links to other countries, but birth control violations & the generic category of "untrustworthy persons" trump the list.
Reasons for internment: "wore a veil from 2012 to 2014", “minor religious infection”, “by clicking on a website unintentionally landed on a foreign website”, “thinking is hard to grasp”, “complicated network of relationships”, “applied for passport but did not leave the country”
74% of the 311 main persons in the document ultimately got a release verdict. Verdict reasoning relies heavily on the performance of family members. If they don't obey local orders, join flag raisings, demonstrate changed thinking, their interned members will "continue to study".
The #KarakaxList confirms numerous key aspects of the 'telegram' from the #ChinaCables, the manual on how to run the camps. Details in the screenshot below. Especially interesting: the high level of
With the #KarakaxList, our understanding of the internment drive and Beijing's next phase in Xinjiang is now much more complete. The leak strongly indicates that the next phase is forced labor. To this end, Karakax built a 340,000sqm factor park w/ fences around each building.
In order to fund the security and camps, Karakax increased its annual new bonds from 187m RMB in 2016 to 2.48bn RMB in 2018! In mid-2019, all three camps had security features removed, and most #KarakaxList detainees marked for release.
Many detainees might have been resettled into secure urban compounds near factory parks (see photo). Their release only grants superficial freedom. The post-internment Xinjiang is a huge field of further research. Also, who knows if new persons were interned in their stead.
Identifying persons for internment & assessing whether they are "safe" to release is a huge task that relies on 100s of thousands of cadres in village work teams. Released detainees remain under close observation - the #KarakaxList shows cases who had to return to camps.
The governance mechanisms set up by Beijing in Xinjiang perpetuate highly asymmetric ethnic power relationships, substituting trust with control.
See simultaneous reporting on this leak by CNN, BBC, N.Y. Times, Associated Press, WSJ, Financial Times, Vice, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, German NDR / Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde, Aftenposten, Swedish SVT. It was my great privilege to coordinate work with these media outlets.
