Up to eight million people have gone through 'training camps' in Xinjiang, a document released by Beijing reveals Credit: AFP or licensors

Alex Winter
The Sun ,18 Sep 2020

A BEIJING document has revealed the scale of its detention camps - as officials say up to EIGHT MILLION people have gone through "training" at state "gulags".

The true impact of the Chinese Communist Party government's internment camps for Uighur and other communities in Xinjiang has been revealed amid international criticism.

The scale of the Chinese Communist Party's camps has now been revealed for the first time Credit: AFP or licensors

Uighurs detained at the immigration regional headquarters near the Thailand-Malaysia border in Hat Yai

China has long been accused of using hellish torture camps to crush political dissent and persecute Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province.

In 2018, one female escapee, 29-year-old Mihrigul Tursun, told US politicians she had been electrocuted.

“I thought I would rather die than go through this torture and begged them to kill me," she said.

And survivor Kayrat Samarkand told how guards used an iron maiden-style metal suit on him.

He told NPR: “They made me wear what they called ‘iron clothes’ – a suit made of metal that weighed over 50lb.

“It forced my arms and legs into an outstretched position. I couldn't move at all, and my back was in terrible pain.”

Brit consulate worker Simon Cheng says he was abducted and tortured in a camp.

Footage claims to show Chinese cops taking blindfolded, shackled prisoners off to 'torture' camps

Xinjiang is home to around 25million people

He said he was “blindfolded, handcuffed and shackled”, hung by his wrists, forced to kneel or squat in stress positions, deprived of sleep and beaten.

But Chinese leaders deny the claims and say the internment sites are simply "vocational training centres".

A report from the government reads: “Through its proactive labour and employment policies, Xinjiang has continuously improved the people’s material and cultural lives, and guaranteed and developed their human rights in every field.”

Figures in the paper reveal the scope of the programme.

More than a million workers - including 415,000 from southern Xinjiang - have gone through the camps every year between 2014 and 2019.

It's not known if people have gone through the camps more than once.

But in total, nearly eight million people out of a population of around 25 million could have been through the programme, the new figures suggest.

And human rights campaigners say people in Xinjiang have been subjected to surveillance, restrictions on religious and cultural beliefs, and forced sterilisation of women - practices amounting to "cultural genocide".

This week, a Brit MP likened the centres to concentration camps.

Tory Tom Tugendhat told the Telegraph: "The mass detention of Uighurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang has horrifying echoes of what we witnessed in the 1930s. 

"There have been similar atrocities since, and each time the world has promised to never allow such violations to happen again. 

"Yet we now have clear, undeniable evidence of the persecution of more than one million people in so-called re-education camps, with credible reports of physical abuse, forced sterilisation, filthy living conditions and a state-led programme of indoctrination."

Adrian Zenz, an academic with expertise on Xinjiang, said the number “gives us a possible scope of coercive labour through the centralised, militarised training of rural surplus labourers”.

Beijing denies claims of rights abuses - and says the policies are necessary to crack down on terrorism and help those in poverty.

However, journalists and human rights groups are heavily restricted from inspecting the highly secretive camps.

 And this week, clothing chain H&M said it's ending an "indirect" relationship with a Chinese supplier over claims of "forced labour".

It follows reports that cotton sourced in Xinjiang was being produced by Uighur Muslims who were being put to work in factories.

A 60-page document submitted to HM Revenue and Customs detailed the “overwhelming and credible evidence concerning the scale and gravity of the forced labour regime in Xinjiang”.

 hocking drone footage shows men bound and shackled in a re-education camp in Xinjiang, China