I loved the variety of ways the Chinese have chosen to say they are not keeping the Uighur in Gulags for Muslims. This latest one today is that these camps are really vocational schools for criminals so they can help rehabilitate themselves. I think Stalin described his camps the same way, so they didn't have to look far for a new way to describe what is definitely a prison by any other name.
The UN must have very solid evidence of these camps because the Chinese first impulse was to deny they have any such thing. Now they have come around to an alternative approach - twice. They usually don't do that unless they know their "official position" is not holding up under scrutiny from the outside. Making the Uighur criminals is a novel way of saying the practice of religion, unless it conforms to state norms, is a crime. They have done this before with a number of groups, usually starting with the idea that they are cults, not religious groups. Then they ban access to any website that mentions them, effectively cutting off any chance for additional recruits. Then they arrest those they can find and send them to jail or rehabilitation. It does not take long for the groups to disappear.
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