Secret Internment Camps and Political Repression: China’s Brutal Crackdown on the Uighurs

More than a million members of the Uighur community in China have been detained in secret internment camps in by the Chinese government.  Reports from the region indicate mass political repression and a widespread crackdown on the ethnic Uighur minority.  The Chinese government tightly controls any access to the Chinese controlled Xinjiang autonomous region, so information is limited through hearing first and second hand accounts by Uighurs.  In this episode we do just that, and speak to Nury Turkel, an attorney and the founder of the the Washington D.C. based Uighur Human Rights Project. With his help, we try to understand the conditions on the ground faced by Uighurs in China and the political dynamics surrounding the crackdown. This piece was produced by Jaydeep Sangha, Gabrielle Henig, Nick Herschel-Burns, and Lisa Kato.