Thread by @Nrg8000

Reporters from the BBC visited a detention facility in Xinjiang's Kuqa that opened in mid-2017. In May 2019, a 35,000m2 factory opened directly adjacent to the camp. Less than a week after it was completed, satellite imagery caught ~1,500 people being moved to the factory.

The line stretches 200m between the camp and the factory, called Kuqa Pomegranite Seed Industry Co (库车石榴籽实业有限公司), and with a rough density analysis you can estimate the crowd at around 1,500 individuals. Moving DIRECTLY from a camp to a factory.

During the week between when the factory was completed and when a mass transfer of detainees was captured by satellite imagery the detention facility itself was significantly desecuritised. Watchtowers were removed, internal fencing was lowered and concrete walls were removed.

While this isn't direct evidence of causation it shows the clear relationship between the desecuritisation of a large number of detention facilities across Xinjiang and forced labour programs, with the timing (May 9th-15th 2019) at this facility matching up precisely.

During construction of the factory there was a wall separating the camp from the factory. As soon as it was completed, a gate was added to the wall, then a walled walkway separating that entrance from the road entrance. Then it was entirely blocked off from the public road.

More people were caught in satellite imagery moving from the camp to the factory in August and September 2019.

And in January this year, you could see the lines where people had been walking through the snow.

That image also shows a path to the left of the factory, through an (empty) parking lot this shows where the factory is directly connected to other residential buildings which are fenced off from the wider housing complex. Orange lines highlight the fencing.

This suggests that other people are at the pomegranate factory, beyond the detainees of the camp, who are allowed to dorm in normal residential apartment buildings (although are still restricted from leaving) - unclear if these are ex-detainees or normal 'surplus labourers'

Another thing to note is the extremely depressing irony behind the name of the factory. A common allegory in Xinjiang party-speak is to claim that the ethnic groups in Xinjiang are 'closer than the seeds in a pomegranate'. Here that's in forced detainee labour for non-Han people.

A photo from the factory, published in state media in August shows a number of non-Han workers sewing what is said to be tens of thousands of school uniforms and PPE.
web.archive.org/web/2020112408…

Meanwhile, as Chinese State Media reporters were allowed inside the factory, the BBC journalists were agressively prevented from getting close and "forced to leave".

Read their report here: bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0…

Online documents say the factory won the tender for a large number of school uniforms and 'court uniforms'. It's unclear if they produce any garments for non-Chinese companies.

According to Tencent Maps, the detention facility is also the location of a company called Kuqa Zhengtong Trading Company "库车征通商贸有限公司", that apparently sells a huge number of other items, including kitchen equipment (except knives).
web.archive.org/web/2020121423…

Also of note is that within 15m of one of the factory's residential dorms is a large kindergarten building. No direct evidence to suggest this is used for the children of detainees or laboureres (it was bulit prior to the camp or the factory), but interesting nonetheless.

.@TheJohnSudworth and @ProducerKathy have uploaded a video of their reporting now, in addition to the online article. Watch it here

It's funny that you should mention this

https://twitter.com/williamat11/status/1338789046215012353

Because the camp is actually not near the city hall (or 库车市人民政府) it's nearly 3km away. However it is less than 100m away from the "Justice Building" (司法大楼民政局). Which does make a lot of sense.