Thread by @GFPhilosophy

Upon the request of @missioncritica, I'll analyze the arguments presented in this ICIJ report:
icij.org/investigations…

This report is another example of an article giving evidence that doesn't support their narrative. The author must be hoping that people won't realise this.

The leaked documents included in the article DO reveal more information about how the re-education centres are run, fully confirming that they are indeed re-education centres used as part of an anti-terror campaign, and not as concentration camps as part of a genocide campaign.

For example, the article notes that the "telegram" gives directives such as:
- provision of basic health and physical welfare
- rules for seeing relatives
- disease prevention standards
- withstand fire and earthquakes
- food safety testing

Does this sound like a genocide camp?

The article notes that students can have calls with family at least once a week "to make their family feel at ease and the students feel safe".

The article then argues that this is not followed because there are twitter campaigns by Uyghurs out of China; a non-sequitur argument.

Then the article refers to leaked "bulletins", one of which states that all graduates should be given employment, given support and monitored in the first year after graduation. The suggestion is this is sinister, but it inherently makes sense since work is usually far from home.

Another bulletin specifies what kind of people are being targeted in the campaign (e.g. IS affiliates), and that suspected terrorists should be placed in a re-education facility.

This proves that the campaign is an anti-terror campaign.

This point that the definition of "terrorism" and "extremism" isn't specified, therefore the campaign targets everyone, is wrong because the leaked documents is a small subset of all related documents and the terms can be defined in other places. "Experts"= Zenz and Byler...

Finally, the article refers to a court document, in Uyghur language no less, to argue that the charges and punishments are arbitrary. But, if you look at the details, this person was dobbed in by his fellow Uyghur colleagues, because he had offended them and called them infidels.

So far, the article has already included enough details to destroy its own narrative. However, let's look at the actual leaked documents and see what else is there that the article omitted.

Let's start with the "telegram":

documentcloud.org/documents/6558…

This was a message to officials in Yili Kazakh AP, and the main purpose was to focus on "free vocational skills education and training for key personnel".

This immediately challenges the narrative that there is a campaign to target Uyghurs, as it isn't even for a Uyghur area.

Some other key directives in the "telegram" include:
- prohibition of police entering campus with guns
- ensure absolutely safety and risk free
- time off allowed under special circumstances and under supervision
- strengthen exams and establish an individual conversation system

- establish mechanisms for students and relatives to interact with each other
- scores based reward and punishment system
- training to focus on students' employment aspirations
- every effort to ensure smooth employment of students with employment aspirations

"Genocide camp"??

Bulletin 2 mentions data on number of foreign nationals targeted in this campaign; 1535 people.

It is clear that there are specific individuals who are considered suspicious and it is not targeting all Uyghurs or foreign nationals.

documentcloud.org/documents/6558…

Bulletin 9 mentions data on number of citizens targeted in this campaign; 4122 people.

Again, this is a very specific list of targets, showing that this is not a widespread campaign to eliminate Uyghurs but a targeted campaign at terror suspects.

documentcloud.org/documents/6558…

Bulletin 20 mentions data on suspicious people with many harmful tags screened in the mobile app; 40,557.

This constitutes about 2% of the 2m users, as mentioned in the main body of the article. It's quite clear that they are screening for ETIM and IS.

documentcloud.org/documents/6558…

So, the article was written with a preset conclusion, it then tried to select pieces of evidence that seemed to fit the narrative (poorly) and ignored the bits that contradicted the narrative.

As we have seen, genocide is a poor explanation of what we see in the evidence...

...anti-terror campaign using re-education is a much better explanation.

It's worth noting that the usual suspects appear as "experts" and "witnesses":
- Adrian Zenz
- Darren Byler
- Tursunay Ziyawudun
- Mihrigul Tursun
- Sayragul Sauytbay

It's an amazing echo chamber.

The article also admits that XJ has been under Chinese control at least as long as the US has been a country.

This should destroy any ongoing arguments that XJ is suffering from Han expansionist colonialism, especially considering Han people did not rule China in the 18th C.