China appears to be expanding its network of secret detention centres in Xinjiang, where predominantly Muslim minorities are targeted in a forced assimilation campaign, and more of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank has found.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute used satellite images and official construction tender documents to map more than 380 suspected detention facilities in the far northwestern region, highlighting internment camps, detention centers and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.
The report builds on evidence that China has made a policy shift from detaining Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in makeshift public buildings to constructing permanent mass detention facilities.
This is despite Chinese state news agency Xinhua reporting late last year that “trainees” attending “vocational education and training centers” meant to deradicalize them had “all graduated.”
Regional government chairman Shohrat Zakir was quoted as saying that foreign media reports of 1 million or 2 million people attending these centers were fabricated, though he would not provide any figures.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Friday dismissed the report as “pure disinformation and slander,” saying the Australian institute had “no academic credibility.”
China does not operate “so-called detention camps” in Xinjiang, Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.
Citing media reports and investigations by internet users, Wang said one of the sites in the report had been identified as an electronics manufacturing park and another as a five-star residential complex.