Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation
Latest “Uyghur prisoners” videos actually a bunch of MLM pyramid scheme people caught in 2017.
Uyghur photo verified as Bijie, Guizhou pyramid scheme by Global Times
- Thus it looks like the Chinese assistants helping Zenz mistakenly added a decimal. Or Zenz is lying. But I'm sure a "Victims of Communism" senior fellow, "led by God" to destroy China, wouldn't do anything sneaky like that. After all, it's not like he's convinced Uighur witnesses to change their stories or anything. https://twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/1277704695222603776
Adrian Zenz views on gender equality, homosexuality and corporal punishment censored off Wikipedia
Who is Adrian Zenz? The Christian Fundamentalist Leading the Global Xinjiang Narrative
Uyghur allegation: There are over 2 million Uyghurs jailed in concentration camps in the name of re-education, but they are secretly being raped, tortured, sterilized, and murdered.
General Logical Rebuttal:
There is no incentive to do so, there is no historical precedence that suggests so, and so far there is no proof of so.
There are 10 million Uyghurs in the entirety of China, take away 4 million for the population for seniors and children (based on the average working demographic of the world). If a third of the working population are in camps, Xinjiang’s economy would collapse. You would disproportionately see seniors and children on the street instead of adults. A significant amount of shops would close down because there are no primary customers to buy things and primary shop owners to sell things. None of this has happened.
On The Number “2 million”:
You have probably seen the satellite image of alleged camps that holds these 2 million detainees. Take one of the most packed areas in the world, New York Manhattan. This place regularly holds 1.6 million people and an undoubtedly tightly packed place. As there are no skyscrapers in these satellite images, the area of occupation for the 2 million Uighur camps should take up another half of an extra Manhattan. Where are the satellite images of city-sized camps around Xinjiang?
If this does not give you an idea of how ridiculous the number 2 million is, the total population of US inmate is 2.3 million. There are 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons. The US prisons are also known to be constantly operating at maximum capacity. There should be over 6 thousand different sized facilities in the province of Xinjiang, not just a couple of tens of small elementary school-sized structures.
The Origin of the number 2 million:
As far as I can trace back, there are currently 2 sources for numbers in the millions, World Uyghur Congress and Adrian Zenz’s “study”.
The World Uyghur Congress’ number is easy to debunk (not saying Zenz’s is any more difficult). Here is a video of how the president of the WUC, Omer Kanat, responded to their allegation of 1 million Uyghurs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8uZZjB4kfM
President Kanat is shown to be very unconfident when making statements regarding where did their source comes from, which he then resorts to saying that the number is provided by “some western media.” Keep in mind that the WUC is what a significant amount of articles cite when addressing the issue of detainee numbers. It is safe to conclude that the World Uyghur Congress has lied.
Adrian Zenz’s study is a bit more complicated to debunk because there is an actual “study” to look at. After taking some time to look at the actual study and doing some research on Adrian Zenz, one can quickly find out that he does not have a history in conducting academically approved papers. He has not received education in statistics related subjects and he has a long track record of making some very “questionable” claims. He claimed that he is “sent by God to punish Beijing,” and actively connects homosexuality, gender equality, and bans on corporal punishment to the power of “Antichrist.” His Wikipedia page has since removed any content regarding his “unconventional” beliefs but archives can still be found on the internet.
Regarding the actual study, there is actually nothing much of substance. Most of the paragraphs are dedicated to providing information on the geological and geographical information on Xinjiang. The conclusion of “millions of detainees” is made by interviewing merely 8 alleged former detainees. There is no further useful information in Zenz’s study on this topic. It is fair to conclude, with a relationship to his fundamentalist Christian views and track record of questionable beliefs by today’s standard, that Adrian Zenz’s study is ultimately unfit to be cited by any article.
If you don’t believe my personal account, here is an article that includes a more detailed explanation:
The “Evidence” of Vocational Training School’s Human Rights Violation:
Drone Footage of blindfolded men shackled and shaven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU_w5UzdZEs
The mentioning of this specific drone footage usually comes with allegations regarding the nature of the content. Most would claim that this is a transfer of Uyghur detainees to the concentration camps. However, a mere close up inspection of the back of vests of these alleged detainees shows that these people belong to the 喀什市看守所, Kashgar Remand Prison. This means that these are inmates, prisoners, literal criminals that are now being portrayed as innocent victims to suit the commentator’s political agenda. Using this footage to argue that the concentration camp exists is ill-intentioned and aims to exploit viewers who can not read Simplified Chinese.
Testimonies by “Former Detainees”:
First of all, it is important to understand the fact that testimonies are anecdotal evidence, heavily subjected to perception bias. Society today suffers from false victimhood because people are very likely to believe the perceived victim and disregard anything coming from the defendant. In the case of testimonies’ falsehood, the defendant is the one that suffers the most.
There are two significant cases of false testimony on the re-education camps: Tursunay Ziyawudun and Rushan Abbas. While the first one may not be famous, the second one should certainly ring a bell.
Tursunay Ziyawundun is the person that started the Forced Sterilization/Chemical Castration Allegation, which is very rampant on today’s internet.
The Problem? She stated in her interview with Buzzfeed 6 months ago that she “wasn’t beaten or abused”:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-uighur-xinjiang-kazakhstan
Why did she change her testimony? A simple explanation would be that had she claimed to have been physically abused, she would have been asked to show bodily evidence, something that would immediately debunk her claim. Now 7 months later, she could claim whatever she wants to, and can simply disregard any request to show bodily evidence.
Then there is the bizarre case of Rushan Abbas. She actually has a presence on Reddit. She runs an account called u/uyghurrallynyc that has since been shut down after her AMA on r/IAmA gathering over 30k upvotes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/e9ad4n/i_am_rushan_abbas_uyghur_activist_and_survivor_of/
She claims to be an Uyghur activist and that many of her friends were locked up in the concentration camps. So what is the big news? She failed to mention her association with NED, a literal branch of CIA, and her participation in the human rights abuse in Guantanamo Bay in 2003, an actual verifiable human rights atrocity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
It remains unclear what her role was at the detention camp. She later explained that she only did translation work, which, need I remind you, still facilitated the inhumane interrogation of innocent people and the worst-case scenario actually participated in the torturing of mostly religious Muslims. The camp remains open indefinitely under the Trump administration.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181207031224/https://www.isi-consultants.com/rushan-abbas/
China Refuses Entry to These “Concentration Camps”? False.
Many galaxy brain internet conspiracists have made the same point, that is if there is truly nothing wrong with what they are doing at these camps, then why wouldn’t they allow entry to these camps?
They have, many times.
January 2019: China invited UN observers.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1456065
June 2019: China invited UN High commissioner.
Many News Outlets like BBC and Vice have also done documentaries on the issue, with BBC having the opportunity to actually go inside the vocational training schools. The result? No matter how hard BBC tried to portray the schools as hell on earth, including blatantly mistranslating interviewer’s words, using out of context satellite images, and making up lies about a “graffiti that they just so happened to have found on a wall,” the documentary shows nothing of the accused “human right violations,” which of course upsets the conspiracy advocates.
https://medium.com/@sunfeiyang/breaking-down-the-bbcs-visit-to-hotan-xinjiang-e284934a7aab
Despite China’s efforts to clear its own name, the conspiracists of the west still refuse to accept reality and claim that these “inside footages” are planned and faked to trick the viewers. Simply take a look at the comment section of the BBC documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmId2ZP3h0c
It is hard to believe that there is somehow a coexistence between people who think that China has something to hide so they won’t allow inside access, and people who think that China has faked the inside access.
The truth has always been there, but it may not be the truth that some people want to see.
The Fake Hair that is Weaved from “Uyghur Detainees’ Hair.”
This is the most cartoonishly ridiculous accusation award goes to this allegation.
Some media have covered the topic that the US has recently seized $800,000 worth of Chinese synthetic hair products, and with some strange connection to the fact that Chinese prisoners’ heads are shaven (just like every other country’s prisoners, the allegation is born.
However, the debunking of the allegation lies in the articles that report them. Why do they use words like “suspected”, ”alleged”, and “supposedly” when it is rather simple to tell the difference between real hair and synthetic hair? I have asked many people who have experience with fake hair extensions on whether synthetic hair feels or touches differently than real hair. My sister owns one too, which she gladly let me touch it for myself. The result is almost certain that hair extensions and synthetic hairs feel very different from real hair. If the people that seized the hair cargo are not idiots, why are the reports still using words like “suspected” when they would gladly jump on the conclusion of “yes, they are for sure real hair?”
Secondly, hair extension and fake hair weaved from real hair does exist, but they are comparatively very expensive. I could just see the clowns reaching the conclusion that “oh that must mean that the hair extensions are made from detainees’ hair to make big money.” You can sell your long, undyed hair for a good price, that is just a known fact if you have experience with the beauty or the cosplay industry, and in most Chinese barbershops, you can sell your hair on the spot if you want. Thus, even if the hair seized is weaved from real hair, that's not evidence for it being made from the hair of detained prisoners that no one has the evidence of them even existing.
To be continued when more false allegations inevitably rise up.
NOTES ON CHINA-UIGHUR CONTROVERSIES AN EVER INCREASING COLLECTION OF NOTES, LINKS, SOURCES, & OBSERVATIONS
On former model turned drug dealer video:
The official pointed out, the relevant report by BBC is a patchwork of fabricated news about China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with grafting tricks, and it is far-fetched and filled with subjective assumptions, which severely deviates from the facts. The report claims that many Uygurs in Xinjiang are detained in the "detention camps" by the Chinese government and suffer from torture on the basis of a video taken by a drug dealer and several text messages. The report is filled with ideological bias, violates the professional ethics of journalism, and severely misleads the audience. It is typical fake news with a vile nature and severe impacts and also damages the credibility of BBC.
Video is a joke. A) Hes cuffed cause hes a drug related criminal. B) Video showed none of the text claims. Not a scratch on him. C) Didn't make up charges to get him. Even according to the made up lies China doesn't need to make up drug charges to get him.
A Well Sourced, 160+ Page Google Document Debunking narratives on China & Uighur Muslims https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d0lynghlCnR6Hs57pypEEhlhHczFVgaYX-TIZD61s_w/edit
Every Uyghur Allegation, Debunked (As of 2020, July 29th) https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/hzphui/every_uyghur_allegation_debunked_as_of_2020_july/
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