![]() Zenz's article on the Xinjiang Police Files | |
Location | ![]() |
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Type | Data breach |
Target | Xinjiang internment camps |
Participants | Adrian Zenz Anonymous hackers |
Website | www |
Photo collection of "students" and extensive background information |
The Xinjiang Police Files are leaked documents from the Xinjiang internment camps, forwarded to anthropologist Adrian Zenz from an anonymous source. On May 24, 2022, an international consortium of 14 media groups [lower-alpha 1] published information about the files, which consist of over 10 gigabytes of speeches, images, spreadsheets and protocols dating back to 2018. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
The Xinjiang Police Files were published at the same time as the UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet started her visit to China on May 23. Her briefing included exploring the situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as part of the visit. [3]
According to estimates by U.N. and U.S. officials, one million Uyghurs and other Turkic groups were held in Chinese government camps in 2018. [7] The existence of China's "re-education" and an extrajudicial program for mass detention were first detected in satellite photos, and testimonies from Uyghur refugees. [7] The documents of the leak were collected during the mass detention program's highest level of intensity. [7]
Initially, China denied the existence of Xinjiang camps; in 2018, the Chinese government started referring to the camps as "vocational training schools", and that attendance was voluntarily. [8] China has also referred to the system as a "de-radicalization" program. [9]
A previous investigation into Xinjiang by a large group of media organisations occurred in 2019, and was released under the name China Cables. This leak, based on classified Chinese government documents, exposed the operations manual for Xinjiang detention camps and the region's system of mass surveillance. [7] The Xinjiang Police Files leak is the second major data leak related to Xinjiang, after more than 400 pages of internal documents were leaked in 2019. [8]
The Xinjiang Police Files documents were obtained by Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who subsequently shared the documents with a group of 14 news organizations. [7] According to Zenz, the files were made available through a "hacking attack directly on police computers and even computers in detention camps" and from public security bureau computer systems in Ili and Kashgar governorates in Xinjiang. [1] The data was evaluated over several weeks by joint research by the media consortium and partially checked for authenticity. [10] [5]
The leak coincided with the first visit by a U.N. human rights diplomat since 2005. [11] According to Zenz, the timing was not intentional. [8]
The Xinjiang Police Files contain thousands of pictures and documents from the Xinjiang counties of Konasheher and Tekes, [7] and contains details of the internment of more than 20,000 Uyghurs. [12] The files contradict China's official reading that the mass internment facilities are "professional training facilities" visited voluntarily, [2] [4] [3] [10] [13] [14] which served to fight poverty and were directed against extremist ideas. [3]
According to media reports, these Chinese government data, classified as "confidential" or "internal," including thousands of analyzed documents, photos, transcripts of speeches by senior party officials, official orders, and training materials, showed the extent of the persecution and mass detentions in Xinjiang in 2018.
As of May 2022, the Xinjiang Police Files were the most comprehensive publicized leak on the state re-education camps in Xinjiang. [5] [15] Zenz wrote a journal article based on the contents of the files, titled The Xinjiang Police Files: Re-Education Camp Security and Political Paranoia in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region published in the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies on May 24. [16] [17]
The documents in the leak include confidential government documents, as well as speeches by top Chinese officials, and internal police documents and tutorials. [7]
Two documents from June 2018 are transcripts of speeches by Zhao Kezhi and Chen Quanguo. [7] One document, marked "confidential", outlines what surveillance measures are to be implemented in Yili during a visit of European diplomats, and directed security officers to "strictly" monitor their contacts and work. [7] The files include details of protocols governing policing at the facilities, making it clear that there are armed officers throughout the camps, and that watchtowers contain machine gun posts and sniper rifles. [12]
In the protocols, blindfolds, handcuffs and shackles are specified for any transfers of detainees, either between facilities or externally, for example to hospital. [12] The leak also details a "shoot-to-kill" policy for anyone trying to escape. [11] This was issued by Chen Quanguo, in his role as Xinjiang's party secretary and member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party at the time in 2018. [13] Chen also called for officials to "exercise firm control over religious believers". [8]
Another document, labeled among the "most striking" by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), are spreadsheets containing information on 8,000 detainees in Konasheher. [7] According to the leak, at least one of the camps in Konasheher has cells for holding detainees in solitary confinement, and the documents indicate that more than 10,000 people in Konasheher county were recommended for detention, or closer examination, via the Integrated Joint Operations Platform. [7] The files include a list titled "relatives of the detained", which, taken with other information, indicates widespread use of "guilt by association". [12] One 16 year old was apparently held captive due to being related to other detained persons. [8]
One document is a spreadsheet titled "persons subjected to strike hard because of religion"; it lists 330 people sentenced because of religious activities deemed illegal, such as studying the Quran. [18]
Among the pictures included in the leak are mugshots of over 2,800 people, with some of the pictures showing "dazed men, women and teenagers staring blankly into camera". [7] In total, the set contains 5,074 mugshots photographed between January and July 2018, possibly to collect biometric data. [7] According to Zenz's analysis, about 2,900 had been detained before the pictures were taken, and range from 15 and 73 in age. [7] [12] 15 of the detainees were minors. [7]
Besides mugshots, other images are included. Among them pictures of interrogations, with one photo showing a young man with hands and feet shackled to a "tiger chair", surrounded by heavily armored guards. [7]
According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the leak is "irrefutable evidence of the highly militarized nature of the camps and present a stark contrast with those, previously published, that were taken on government-organized press tours", as well as stating that "taken together, the photographs and documents refute the Chinese government's claims that the camps are merely 'educational centers'". [7]
The Chinese government has denied accusations of human rights violations, calling them "fabricated lies and disinformation", and stating what they call "training centers" are used to aid poverty and "de-radicalize" extremists. [7] Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C., told ICIJ that "Xinjiang has taken a host of decisive, robust and effective deradicalization measures". [7] Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the leak "the latest example of anti-China forces trying to smear China", stating "[i]t is just a repetition of their old tricks. Spreading rumours and lies won't cloud the judgment of the world and cannot cover up the fact that Xinjiang enjoys stability and prosperity, and residents there are living happy and fulfilling lives". [18]
On May 23, 2022, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss asked for "unfettered access to the region so that [Bachelet] can conduct a thorough assessment of the facts on the ground". [19] She also stated that the leaked files contained "shocking details of China's human rights violations" [11]
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called for a transparent investigation after “shocking reports and new evidence of very serious human rights violations in Xinjiang”. [11] German minister of the economy Robert Habeck called the latest leak "particularly shocking". [11]
On May 29, 2022, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing" in Xinjiang province, and that China "restricted and manipulated" UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet's visit. [20] Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted: "Horrified by the Xinjiang Police Files, which spotlight China's mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities." [11]
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Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities. The word internment is also occasionally used to describe a neutral country's practice of detaining belligerent armed forces and equipment on its territory during times of war, under the Hague Convention of 1907.
Human rights in China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and human rights organizations have often disagreed. CCP and PRC authorities, their supporters, and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However other countries and their authorities, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Human Rights in China and Amnesty International, and citizens, lawyers, and dissidents inside the country, state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with personnel in Australia, France, Spain, Hungary, Serbia, Belgium and Ireland.
Chen Quanguo is a retiring Chinese politician and the current deputy head of the CCP Central Rural Work Leading Group. Between 2017 and 2022, he was a member of the 19th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and was previously the Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region from 2011 to 2016 and of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021, making him the only person to serve as the Party Secretary for both autonomous regions. Chen was also Political Commissar of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps concurrently with his position as Xinjiang Party Secretary.
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
Zhu Hailun is a Chinese politician who is the current vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Previously he served as the deputy party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Between 2009 and 2016, Zhu was the party chief of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region.
In the People's Republic of China, grid-style social management is a surveillance system used to maintain public security and social order.
The East Turkistan National Movement also known as the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement is a non-profit human rights and political advocacy organization established in June 2017 in Washington D.C. Salih Hudayar, a Uyghur American consultant and graduate student founded the group after pre-existing Uyghur organizations failed to openly call for East Turkestan independence deeming it "controversial".
The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee. Human Rights Watch says that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014. The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment, rape, and torture, with some of them alleging genocide. Some 40 countries around the world have called on China to respect the human rights of the Uyghur community, including countries such as Canada, Germany, Turkey, Honduras and Japan. The governments of more than 35 countries have expressed support for China's government.
In May 2014, the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched the "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" in the far west province of Xinjiang. It is an aspect of the Xinjiang conflict, the ongoing struggle by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government to manage the ethnically diverse and tumultuous province. According to critics, the CCP and the Chinese government have used the global "war on terror" of the 2000s to frame separatist and ethnic unrest as acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. Chinese officials have maintained that the campaign is essential for national security purposes.
The Xinjiang papers are a collection of more than 400 pages of internal Chinese government documents describing the government policy regarding Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. In November 2019, journalists Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley at The New York Times broke the story that characterized the documents as "one of the most significant leaks of government papers from inside China's ruling Communist Party in decades." According to The New York Times, the documents were leaked by a source inside the Chinese Communist Party and include a breakdown of how China created and organized the Xinjiang internment camps.
The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Beginning in 2014, the Chinese government, under the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, incarcerated more than an estimated one million Turkic Muslims without any legal process in internment camps. Operations from 2016 to 2021 were led by Xinjiang CCP Secretary Chen Quanguo, who dramatically increased the scale and scope of the camps. This is the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. Experts estimate that, since 2017, some sixteen thousand mosques have been razed or damaged, and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.
The China Cables are a collection of secret Chinese government documents from 2017 which were leaked by exiled Uyghurs to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and published on 24 November 2019. The documents include a telegram which details the first known operations manual for running the Xinjiang internment camps, and bulletins which illustrate how China's centralized data collection system and mass surveillance tool, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, uses artificial intelligence to identify people for interrogation and potential detention.
The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 is a United States federal law that requires various federal U.S. government bodies to report on human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, including internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps.
Adrian Nikolaus Zenz is a German anthropologist known for his studies of the Xinjiang internment camps and Uyghur genocide. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, an anti-communist think tank established by the US government and based in Washington, DC.
Merdan Ghappar is a Chinese model and a prisoner of Uyghur heritage. He became known for his internment in one of China's Xinjiang re-education camps in 2020. Merdan achieved to smuggle video footage and text messages from his internment camp to family members in Europe, who then passed the material on to the press. As of 5 August 2020, his status was unknown.
The Xinjiang Victims Database is a database which attempts to record all currently known individuals who are detained in Xinjiang internment camps in China. The database has documented over 16,000 victims.
The Xinjiang Data Project is a China-focused Australian research project created and managed by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). The project states that it has identified grave human rights violations in Xinjiang, including the mass detention of minorities, and compulsory sterilizations. The researchers found that one out of every three mosques have been demolished in Xinjiang since 2017.
The Uyghur Tribunal was an independent "people's tribunal" based in the United Kingdom that aims to examine evidence regarding China's ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and to evaluate whether the abuses constitute genocide under the Genocide Convention. The tribunal was chaired by Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milošević, who announced the creation of the tribunal in September 2020.
The OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China is a report published on 31 August 2022 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concerning the treatment of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim groups in China. The report concluded that "[t]he extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity." Human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet released the report shortly before leaving the office.
Fotos aus staatlichen Umerziehungslagern, vertrauliche Anweisungen und andere Papiere zeigen die Internierung Hunderttausender Uiguren in Xinjiang im Nordwesten Chinas. Internationale Medien werteten die Dokumente aus
The German China expert Adrian Zenz was leaked thousands of secret documents anonymously. DER SPIEGEL and other media are now evaluating the explosive information
Shortly before UN Human Rights Commissioner Bachelet's visit to Xinjiang, an international media consortium published further evidence of the mass internment of Uyghurs in China. The Bavarian Radio and the "Spiegel" were involved in the research
Erstmals zeigen Bilder, wie brutal China die Minderheit der Uiguren in der Region Xinjiang unterdrückt. Die Aufnahmen sind Teil eines umfassenden Leaks, das der BR mit weiteren Medienpartnern ausgewertet hat[For the first time, images show how brutally China oppresses the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region. The recordings are part of a comprehensive leak that BR has evaluated with other media partners]
For the first time, pictures from Xinjiang show how China deals with the Uyghur minority. The data comes from an anonymous source. The international team of reporters has extensively checked the data set, from satellite images to calls to police officers
Thousands of photos and documents are intended to show how China treats the Uigu repressed. But is the material authentic? BR, "Spiegel" and other media checked the "Xinjiang Police Files". This is how they did it
Demnach soll Chen Quanguo, der frühere Parteichef von Xinjiang, 2018 einen Schießbefehl für flüchtende Häftlinge erteilt haben: "Erst töten, dann melden."[According to this, Chen Quanguo, the former party leader of Xinjiang, is said to have issued an order to shoot escaping prisoners in 2018: "First kill, then report."]
Photos from government re-education camps, confidential instructions and other papers show the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, northwest China. International media evaluated the documents