Speaking Of Asia: Inside those Uighur re-education camps

Western media reports vilify Uighur re-education centres as concentration camps, but it is hard to fault China for wanting to rehabilitate the Uighurs if their ideology is anathema to the Chinese state and hostile to other communities

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URUMQI/KASHGAR (Xinjiang) • It has been exactly a decade since massive rioting broke out this day in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Those riots took the lives of more than 150 people, and caused the arrest of many times that number after thousands of Uighur Muslims took on Han Chinese, whom they consider interlopers on their land.

It is an event seared in public memory, at least among the people in Xinjiang. It also is unlikely to happen again.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 05, 2019, with the headline Speaking Of Asia: Inside those Uighur re-education camps. Subscribe