(15 Mar 2018) More than a hundred members of the Uighur Muslim ethnic group held a demonstration outside the United Nations on Thursday to protest a sweeping Chinese surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands of their people into detention and political indoctrination centers.
Most of the protestors live in America and Canada and said they are unable to communicate with relatives in China for fear those relatives will be sent to camps.
Uighur are Muslims, many of whom say the land they live on is East Turkestan, but the Chinese government calls the land Xinjiang and those who want to break away are called separatists.
Protesters say Uighur are being rounded up by the hundreds of thousands and put in camps where they are taught to abandon Islam, embrace atheism and become patriotic Chinese.
They are calling on the United Nations to protect their culture and their practice of religion.
Chinese officials say the crackdown is necessary to stamp out a decades-long separatist movement and, more recently, Islamic extremism seeping into the region. Hundreds have died in violent clashes in recent years that the government blames on separatist militants.
Allegations of widespread abuse in the centers, including unexplained deaths, have been rife but are almost impossible to confirm, given the extreme level of surveillance and government obstruction of independent reporting trips by foreign media. Associated Press reporters were detained for 11 hours by police in Xinjiang in November while investigating the reported death of a 26-year-old in an indoctrination center.
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