Thread by @therubykid

There’s something grossly... I hesitate to say “racist”, but it’s hard to think of another word... about the fact that all these denialists focus on one white westerner researching the issue, as if his wider views somehow invalidate the voices of the actual victims.

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1372657130273136645

Don’t like Zenz? Fine, ignore his research if you want. There’s abundant evidence in the Chinese state’s own official records and statements, both public and leaked, to show there’s a substantial infrastructure of mass surveillance and repression in Xinjiang/East Turkestan.

But it’s also just an inoperable attitude to knowledge; if the fact that someone has bigoted views, and might be saying something for their own, reactionary, reasons, does that automatically make the thing they’re saying necessarily factually untrue?

I’ve yet to see a serious attempt to disprove the substance of Zenz’s research, only dismissals that amount to “he’s a Christian fundamentalist bigot, so we can discount this.”

TL/DR: Read some fucking Orwell. Swap out “Lord Halifax” / “Daily Telegraph” for “Adrian Zenz” or any other right-wing source indicting China for reactionary reasons. Someone saying something for reactionary or hypocritical reasons doesn’t mean it’s not true.

UYGHURS INTERNATIONALLY: Our relatives have disappeared.
FORMER INMATES: There are concentration camps in Xinjiang/ET.
CHINESE STATE: We are carrying out mass repression and surveillance of Uyghurs.

WESTERN CCP APOLOGISTS: This is all untrue, because Adrian Zenz is a bigot.