China says 13,000 ‘terrorists’ arrested in Xinjiang since 2014

China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres holding more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centres.

Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 “terrorists” in Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a policy paper defending its controversial de-radicalisation measures for Muslims in the restive far western region.

China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres holding more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centres.

Legal authorities have adopted a policy that “strikes the right balance between compassion and severity”, the government said in its white paper.

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Reporter - China's harassment of Muslims

The UN accuses China of detaining a million Uighurs, Kazakhs and people from other Muslim minorities in the region of Xinjiang. Most have not been accused of anything let alone sentenced.