China says it will continue 'training' Xinjiang people
This file photo taken on June 2, 2019 shows buildings at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. PHOTO | GREG BAKER | AFP
Rights groups estimate more than a million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are held in the facilities, which reports describe as indoctrination camps that are run like prisons and aimed at eradicating Uighur culture and religion.
In a press conference, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the far-west region, rejected the estimates by rights groups and foreign experts that over a million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are kept at the camps.
Xu Hairong, party secretary of Xinjiang's capital city Urumqi, slammed The New York Times and ICIJ's document leaks, accusing them of "maliciously distorting and slandering" the region's re-education camps.
Beijing,
China on Monday defended its vast network of re-education camps in Xinjiang and said it would continue "training" residents, following explosive government document leaks detailing surveillance and control of the region's Uighur population.
