Uighur researchers say China running more camps than known
ARLINGTON, United States — Uighur activists said Tuesday they have documented nearly 500 camps and prisons run by China to detain members of the ethnic group, alleging that Beijing could
The East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, a Washington-based group that seeks independence for the mostly Muslim region known to China as Xinjiang, gave the geographic coordinates of 182 suspected "concentration camps" where Uighurs are allegedly pressured to renounce their culture.
Researching imagery from Google Earth, the group said it also spotted 209 suspected prisons and 74 suspected labor camps for which it would share details later.
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Anders Corr, an analyst who formerly worked in US intelligence and who advised the group, said that around 40 percent of the sites had not
Rights advocates have
But Randall Schriver, the top Pentagon official for Asia, said in May that the figure was "likely closer to three million citizens"
He said that the group tried to verify the nature of each site with on-the-ground accounts but declined to give greater detail, citing the need to protect sources.
'Like boiling a frog'
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"It's
"But if they were just to keep everyone imprisoned and let them die off naturally, perhaps the world might not notice. I think that's what China is banking on," he said.
China has justified its policy after first denying the camps, saying that it is providing vocational training and coaxing Muslims away from extremism. Hundreds died in 2009 riots in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi that largely targeted Han Chinese.
The United States has likened China's treatment of Uighurs to Nazi Germany's concentration camps, but an increasingly strong Beijing has faced limited criticism outside the West.
China last month secured a statement at the United Nations by nations including Russia, Pakistan and Egypt
The Uighur activist group said it periodically added data including on the destruction of cemeteries in Xinjiang, which
The movement said it had unsuccessfully asked the State Department for satellite data
US lawmakers have also spoken out increasingly on Xinjiang.
In a recent letter, Representative Jim McGovern and Senator Marco Rubio, who
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