Save Uyghur Statement on the Xinjiang Police Files and “The Faces from China’s Uyghur Detention Camp”

The Save Uyghur Campaign would like to recognize BBC News for the release of The Faces from China’s Uyghur Detention Camp–an article revealing the human lives torn apart by China’s Uyghur concentration camps. 

The article was released after an investigation into and authentication of leaked secret CCP documents named the Xinjiang Police Files obtained by unidentified hackers. According to the BBC report, the Xinjiang Police Files include photos of more than 20,000 Uyghur detainees who are residents of Konashahar county (Shufu county in Chinese) and 452 google spreadsheets containing detainees’ personal information, draconian prison sentences with baseless accusations, police manuals describing shoot-to-kill policies on Uyghurs attempting to escape, and photographs exposing the prison-like nature of the concentrations camps China insists to be “Vocational Training Centers.” 

According to the article, the Xinjiang Police Files further confirm “China’s use of re-education camps and formal prisons as two separate but related systems of mass detention for Uyghurs.” Uyghur detainees are targeted for who they are–expressing their ethnic cultural, and religious identity. 

Save Uyghur would also like to acknowledge the hard work of the independent researcher, Dr. Adrian Zens at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation who shared these documents with BBC and also published his research findings on the Xinjiang Police Files. 

Regarding the new findings, Save Uyghur team lead Serwi Huseyin stated, “The cache containing thousands of innocent faces in this BBC article made Uyghurs realize one more time that the ongoing genocide is real and their family members have been affected deeply by this atrocity.”

“I hope publication of the Xinjiang Police Files helps the world realize the urgency of taking solid actions to stop the mass internment of Uyghurs. The U.S. government passed several Uyghur bills in the past years and sanctioned some Chinese officials who are responsible for this genocide, but these measures are not enough and the situation of Uyghurs is dire.”

“I call on the U.S. government to pass the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act which is now in Congress in order to provide Uyghurs in exile with concrete support.”

Save Uyghur calls on the United Nations High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, to carry out formal investigations on these brutal detainment facilities during her landmark visit to East Turkestan (aka: Xinjiang) taking place next week. We also call on governments around world, human rights advocacy groups, international investors, and the global community to take tangible actions to pressure China in stopping one of the most egregious violations of human rights since the Holocaust. Muslim and Central Asian countries have turned a blind eye to the Uyghur Genocide. Seeing the Xinjiang Police Files, we urge them to break their silence.