China Legalizes Re-Education Camps

China Legalizes Detention Of "Religious Extremists" In "Re-Education Camps"

China’s restive far-western Xinjiang region has revised its legislation to allow local governments to "educate and transform" people influenced by extremism at “vocational training centres” – a term used by the government to describe a network of internment facilities known as "re-education camps", the SCMP reported.

“Governments above the county level can set up education and transformation organizations and supervising departments such as vocational training centers, to educate and transform people who have been influenced by extremism,” the revised legal clause says, which should provoke howls of fury from liberal western democracies at Beijing's gross abuse of human rights, unless of course said crusaders for global justice are busy...

The revised law, which kicked in on Tuesday, comes amid rising international outcry on the secretive camps in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in which up to 1 million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslims are reported to have been detained and subjected to enforced political re-education.

Chinese officials had earlier denied the existence of such arbitrary detention and enforced political re-education bases, but said "some citizens had been sent to vocational centers for minor criminal misdemeanours."

The revision, issued by the regional legislature, recognizes the use of such centres as part of the government’s efforts to eliminate “religious extremism”, which in recent years have also included a massive security crackdown in Xinjinag and sweeping restrictions on Islamic practices.

Apart from teaching vocational skills, the centres are required to provide education on spoken and written Chinese, and aspects of the law and other regulations. They must also organize "ideological education to eliminate extremism", carry out psychological treatment and behavior correction, in order to “help trainees to transform their thoughts and return to society and their families”.

The old version of the law was passed in March 2017. It bans a wide range of acts deemed manifestations of extremism, including wearing veils or “abnormal” beards, refusing to watch state television or listen to state radio, and preventing children from receiving national education, according to the SCMP.