Adrian Zenz Profile picture
May 24, 2022 10 tweets 5 min read Read on X
BREAKING: huge trove of files obtained by hacking into Xinjiang police / re-education camp computers contain first-ever image material from inside camps, reveal Chen Quanguo issuing shoot-to-kill orders, Xi Jinping demanding new camps because existing ones are overcrowded. 🧵 Image
The material is unprecedented on several levels:
1. High-level speeches, implicating top leadership and containing blunt language

2. Camp security instructions, far more detailed than China Cables, describe heavily armed strike units with battlefield assault rifles Image
3. Vivid image of police drills, and over 5,000 images of persons taken at detention centers/police stations, 2,884 of them are interned.

4. Spreadsheets showing vast scale of internments: over 12% of adult population of Uyghur county in 2018 shown in camps or prisons. Image
The youngest person confirmed to be in a re-education camp is Rahile Omer, age 14 when she was detained, nearly age 15 when her image was taken by the police. Image
I am please to have my authentication and analyses published peer reviewed by JEACS: journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/jeac… (download links for material are being fixed)

Big thanks to @sascha_kb for his dedication and assistance, and to the peer reviewers. Image
A second report of mine specifically on the speech by China's Minister of Public Security, implication Beijing and Xi in the campaign of mass internment, is published by @ChinaFile:
chinafile.com/reporting-opin…
I assembled a consortium of 13 media outlets around the globe from 10 countries, who reviewed much of the material, some of them with large OSINT and investigative teams, putting a huge amount of work into this. Expect significant media reporting this week.
You can view and download many of the files, documents and nearly 2,900 images of detained persons from the #XinjiangPoliceFiles website:
xinjiangpolicefiles.org
The #XinjiangPoliceFiles contain a very large amount of visual material, including police training PowerPoints, image material from Xinjiang, including sensitive material showing police stations, police headquarters etc. This significantly aided in the authentication. Image
The #XinjiangPoliceFiles contain for example the entire unredacted Xinjiang Papers document no.5 on history (the leaked Xinjiang Papers contained only a redacted version of this internal document). Image

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More from @adrianzenz

Jan 23
Tomorrow, China's human rights record will be reviewed at the UN. At the last review in 2018, Beijing first admitted the existence of the camps.

China is fielding a 60-strong delegation under orders to handle problems in a "quiet, safe & swift manner".
thegenevaobserver.com/exclusive-chin…
Beijing is expending considerable resources to ensure that the UPR review won't go anywhere.

Read about its tactics in this excellent overview by @SophieDRich:

chinafile.com/reporting-opin…
@SophieDRich Related op-ed by @benedictrogers, arguing that member states must be clear and specific in pointing out Beijing's egregious human rights violations. He suggests 10 points that could be raised.
ucanews.com/news/chinas-ri…
Read 6 tweets
Dec 8, 2023
BREAKING: U.S. sanctions first Chinese central government official over atrocities in Xinjiang:
Hu Lianhe, who defended the camps at the U.N. in 2018.

Hu is a deputy head of the central government's Xinjiang Leading Small Group and of the United Front.
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
The justification for sanctioning him follows closely my analysis of Hu's role in my research article from 2021.

The Xinjiang LSG he co-leads was closely involved in the De-Extremification Regulation, which justified the re-education camps.
jamestown.org/program/eviden…
Image
Specifically the Central Xinjiang Work Coordination Small Group (中央新疆工作协调小组办公室) was closely involved in supervising the draft of the original Regulation, published in March 2017, and its revision, published in October 2018. Thus, he had close knowledge of the camps.
Image
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Read 10 tweets
Dec 6, 2023
New Xinjiang Police Files evidence shows that Uyghurs were sent from re-education camps directly to vocational institutions that organized job fairs with Volkswagen & advertise degrees with Volkswagen as a typical work destination. One victim: the Uyghur Adiljan Hashim. /1 新疆轻工职业技术学院
Police records show that Adiljan Hashim was detained in October 2017, then placed into the Xinjiang Light Industry Technical College (新疆轻工职业技术学院) in January 2018. This "release" was highly controlled and based on pre-agreed conditions (担保释放人员).
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The Xinjiang Light Industry Technical College offers majors in fields such as automobile manufacturing (汽车制造). The college lists examples of a cooperation with companies including FAW-Volkswagen Xinjiang on its website, and advertises Volkswagen as a graduate employer. Image
Read 9 tweets
Nov 20, 2023
Pleased to publish another peer-reviewed article today on Xinjiang forced labor (4th this year), arguing why this forced labor requires reversing the burden of proof.

It evaluates EU draft legislation & analyses evolution of ILO measurement frameworks:🧵
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Image
I would like to thank the Journal of Human Trafficking (@JournalOfHT) for publishing this article.

It's important to have work on Xinjiang forced labor published in a journal that specializes on forced labor, human trafficking, and modern slavery. Image
The article advances the to-date first systematic review of:
(1) the evolution of ILO efforts to measure forced labor, and of
(2) the suitability of the ILO’s 2012 Survey Guidelines in several Central Asian state-imposed forced labor contexts (XJ, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Taj). Image
Read 15 tweets
Nov 13, 2023
Major investigative report uncovers how large corporations including @bp_plc, Hilton & Spotify bought carbon credits at direct risk of Uyghur forced labor.

My team provided crucial research findings, implicating the world’s largest carbon consultancy: 🧵
theguardian.com/environment/20…
The Bachu carbon project developed by the world's largest carbon consultancy @southpoleglobal in Kashgar burns cotton stalks to generate climate neutral power.

These stalks are sourced from a region with multiple coercive labor transfers targeting Uyghurs to pick cotton.
Bachu is part of Xinjiang's most coercive labor transfer policies, see .

Our research identified multiple specific local cases of coercive state transfer efforts within the 50km radius within which the plan sources cotton stalks.tandfonline.com/doi/permission…
Read 7 tweets
Nov 9, 2023
Forced Uyghur labor undergirds Xinjiang’s export boom.

My new op-ed argues that Xinjiang's drastic foreign trade growth (over 100% in Uyghur regions) is not a coincidence, but linked to intensified & expanded labor transfers: 🧵
thehill.com/opinion/intern…
Recent data shows that Xinjiang's foreign exports increased by 49% in the first three quarters of 2023. Increases in Uyghur regions were over 100% (for 2022).

I argue that this drastic growth is not by coincidence.
Export growth was driven by a 50 percent increase in labor-intensive products — the types of goods most at risk of involving forced Uyghur labor.

Since 2021, Xinjiang intensified its labor transfer and employment policies - see detailed discussion in tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Read 11 tweets

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