China’s campaign in Xinjiang is not an episode of excess or an aberration from state policy; it is a vast, meticulously constructed system designed to reengineer a people. Since 2017, under the banner of counterterrorism and “stability,” Beijing has deployed mass detention, technological surveillance, and cultural erasure against millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
What emerges from survivor testimony and documentary evidence is a project of unprecedented scale that seeks to suppress dissent and reshape identities.
The machinery of this repression is embedded in daily life. Witnesses describe a region where movement is restricted, homes are searched without warning, and personal behaviour is monitored by both security forces and civilian cadres. A 2021 Amnesty International report details how people are tracked, interrogated, and judged through extensive biometric data collection, omnipresent cameras, frequent device inspections, and a network of checkpoints that marks every transition from one part of the region to another. One Han Chinese witness recounted watching Uyghur passengers undergo full-body searches while Han travellers “were essentially waved through without being questioned.”
Detention Without Crime
The centrepiece of Beijing’s campaign is its sprawling network of internment camps—facilities the government calls “education” or “training” centres but which function as extrajudicial prisons. Amnesty interviewed 55 former detainees; all reported being detained arbitrarily, without having committed any internationally recognisable offence.
Many were held for actions as mundane as communicating with family abroad, possessing digital applications deemed suspicious, or displaying signs of Islamic practice. Others were swept up because the authorities classified them as “untrustworthy,” “suspicious,” or merely “connected” to someone who fit those categories.
The process of arrest is itself a display of state power. One local government worker described joining mass raids: “The police would take people out of their houses… with hands handcuffed behind them… and they put black hoods on them… Nobody could resist… That night we made 60 arrests.”
These detentions circumvent every layer of China’s formal legal system. They operate outside criminal procedure. They require neither charge nor trial. People simply disappear into the camps.
Life Inside the Camps
The testimonies in the report describe a world built to extinguish autonomy. Detainees enter an environment where every movement is monitored, every conversation policed, every minute regimented. Speaking anything other than Mandarin Chinese brings punishment; failing to sit completely still for hours can provoke collective reprimands. Food, water, and healthcare are rationed so strictly that many described conditions as degrading and dehumanising.
Political indoctrination permeates all aspects of daily life. Detainees spend hours memorising patriotic songs and slogans praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President Xi Jinping. One man recalled how instructors told detainees to abandon Islamic greetings and to declare “Chinese” as their ethnicity. “It was not Allah who gave you all,” they said. “It was Xi Jinping… You must not thank Allah; you must thank Xi Jinping for everything.”
Physical and psychological torture are routine. Survivors described beatings, electric shocks, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and being shackled in the notorious “tiger chair,” which immobilises the body in agonising position for hours or days. One detainee, Mansur, recalled being beaten with a chair until it broke after refusing to admit to religious practice he feared would earn him a 20-year sentence. Another survivor recounted watching a man restrained in a tiger chair for three days, urinating and defecating where he sat; the man later died from the abuse.
The camps do not simply aim to punish behaviour—they aim to transform thought. Detainees are required to write confessions and “self-criticism” letters, renouncing past beliefs and promising ideological loyalty. Surveillance continues even within the cells: detainees take shifts through the night monitoring one another on behalf of the guards.
A System That Extends Beyond the Walls
For those who emerge from the camps, freedom is conditional and closely monitored. Former detainees remain under electronic and in-person surveillance, required to undergo ongoing “education,” attend political sessions, and often host government employees in their homes for days at a time.
Movement is strictly limited; even travel within one’s township requires official permission. Families are threatened with renewed detention if individuals speak about their experiences. All 55 former detainees interviewed were forced to sign documents prohibiting them from discussing their time in the camps, especially with foreigners.
Many are also funnelled into compulsory labour. One detainee described being transferred from a camp to a facility where he was taught to sew uniforms, then sent to live and work in a factory for several months—part of a broader pattern Amnesty identifies as coerced labour linked directly to the internment system. Others reported that classmates and family members were abruptly handed prison sentences, often for routine behaviour that bore no resemblance to criminal conduct.
A Surveillance State Without Precedent
Xinjiang’s surveillance apparatus extends far beyond the camps. The region is a panopticon where the state tracks not only movement but social networks, religious habits, and digital footprints. Residents describe government “homestays,” in which cadres are assigned to live with Muslim families, observing their daily routines.
Phones are searched, financial histories reviewed, and biometric data collected en masse. Cameras follow Uyghurs everywhere—from city streets to railway tunnels—while Han residents often bypass the same scrutiny altogether. One official explained the discrimination bluntly: “Uyghurs have to be treated differently because there are no Han terrorists.”
Religious practice, even in its most private form, is effectively banned. People are forbidden to pray, keep religious items, teach their children Islamic beliefs, or use Arabic script in their homes. One witness described going door to door with police, confiscating prayer mats and Qur’ans as families wept.
A Deliberate, Systematic Campaign
Through extensive interviews, documents, and satellite analysis, Amnesty International concludes that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity—specifically imprisonment, torture, and persecution—on a widespread and systematic scale. The evidence points to a campaign designed not only to punish individuals but to reshape an entire population through coercion, fear, and forced assimilation.
Beijing’s strategy is marked by secrecy. Former detainees describe being rehearsed to deliver scripted praise in advance of foreign visits. Government cadres reported destroying documents after major leaks. Journalists attempting to report from the region have been obstructed, followed, or forced to leave China. Family members of those who speak out abroad are threatened, detained, or disappeared. The aim, as one leaked directive emphasised, is “strict secrecy” about everything inside the camps.