Reuters looks at the vast network of camps made for China's Moslem population (tip to Instapundit who wonders about Tom "China for a day" Friedman's thoughts):
A United Nations panel has accused China of turning its far-flung western region of Xinjiang “into something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a ‘no rights zone’.” It estimates that there could be as many as one million Muslims who have been detained there.
Former detainees describe being tortured during interrogation, living in crowded cells and being subjected to a brutal daily regimen of Communist Party indoctrination that drove some people to suicide. Most of those who have been rounded up by the security forces are Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority that numbers some 10 million. Muslims from other ethnic groups, including Kazakhs, have also been detained.
Reuters tracked the growth in size of the so-called vocational schools. They also interviewed those who had endured the "reeducation."
At least these are concentration camps and not death camps. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps it depends on how well the camps "reeducate" their Uighur victims. Perhaps we shouldn't be hasty in condemning "reasonably enlightened" rulers (as Friedman saw them) who it is said have the natural ability to think in the long term.
Although putting graduation from Ol' Reeducation University on your work application doesn't help your social credit score.
Once you graduate from Ol' ReedU with a major in loving Big Han Brother and a minor in auto repair, the loving embrace continues:
According to the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, as of the end of September, 1.1 million local government workers have been deployed to ethnic minorities' living rooms, dining areas and Muslim prayer spaces, not to mention at weddings, funerals and other occasions once considered intimate and private.
All this is taking place in China's far west region of Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have long reported discrimination at the hands of the country's majority Han Chinese.
While government notices about the "Pair Up and Become Family" program portray it as an affectionate cultural exchange, Uighurs living in exile in Turkey said their loved ones saw the campaign as a chilling intrusion into the only place that they once felt safe.
Just when you thought being reasonably enlightened couldn't get creepier.
And yes, I wonder how Friedman judges his China crush now.
