China tweaks law to legalise internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang

China over the past few months has faced flak over its counter-terrorism policies in Xinjiang which included creating internment camps in which up to a million Uygur Muslims were detained and subjected to ideological reorientation.

Written by ZEESHAN SHAIKH | Beijing | Updated: October 11, 2018 8:12:53 am

After denying about internment camps, China tweaks law to legalise it in Xinjiang

China, therefore, seems to have tweaked existing rules to ensure that there is legal justification to set up these detention centres.

Chinese authorities have revised laws in the restive province of Xinjiang which would now allow them to set up “re-education camps” for people accused of religious extremism.

China over the past few months has faced flak over its counter-terrorism policies in Xinjiang, which included creating internment camps in which up to a million Uyghur Muslims were detained and subjected to ideological reorientation.

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The country has so far denied the existence of such camps. Human rights organisations had also claimed that under the present legal system in China, there was no legal basis for setting up such camps.

China, therefore, seems to have tweaked existing rules to ensure that there is legal justification to set up these detention centres.

The new rules are called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulation on de-extremification and have been passed by the 13th people’s congress of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

“Autonomous regions, prefectures (municipalities, regions), and counties (municipalities, districts) are to establish leading small groups on de-extremification, responsible for de-extremification in that administrative region” the law states.

It states that people’s governments at the county level or above may establish occupational skills education and training centres to conduct education and transformation for persons influenced by extremism.

The communist country has been accused of trying to wipe of Uyghur culture and forcibly assimilate the Muslim minority into the dominant Han culture.