What happened
Independent researchers, satellite imagery analysis, leaked government documents, and testimony from camp survivors have together established the scale and nature of the Xinjiang detention system: as many as 1,200 state-run facilities holding an estimated 1 to 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslim minorities without trial, on the basis of criteria as broad as having a relative living abroad, using a banned prayer app, or simply being of the wrong ethnicity and religion in the wrong region.
Between 2017 and 2020 alone, roughly 80,000 previously detained Uyghurs were transferred into forced labour at factories across China with supply-chain links to over 80 global consumer brands, according to Australian Strategic Policy Institute research. Camp survivors have described indoctrination sessions, forced renunciation of religious practice, and physical abuse.
The United States government, along with the parliaments or governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and others, have formally determined this campaign constitutes genocide under international law. China's government denies any wrongdoing, describing the facilities as voluntary vocational training centres.