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The ~1 million Uighurs the Chinese government has in concentration camps. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.ht

The ~1 million Uighurs the Chinese government has in concentration camps. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nradov 7y ago
Supposedly ethnic Han Chinese men are also being assigned by the government to sleep with the wives of detained Uyghur men. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/cosleeping-10312019160528.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/cosleeping-103120191...
- tossAfterUsing 7y ago
  hmm... i guess only the one's they've not yet sterilized? https://www.pop.org/the-plight-of-the-uyghur-people-2/ https://www.pop.org/the-plight-of-the-uyghur-people-2/ edit: wow... 2001
- yorwba 7y ago
  RFA is a US propaganda operation. Leave it up to them to make "sleeping with the wives of detained Uyghur men" sound like the job description of those government agents, rather than a consequence of poor people not having free guest beds on hand, so they have to share beds with someone, potentially with the whole household. Also clever use of "sleep with" to imply sex. (I don't doubt that some will abuse their power, but I'd expect Uyghur families to think far enough ahead to have another male relative in the same room, if not the same bed.) EDIT: I posted this as a bit of an experiment. In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601613 I link to a TV program criticising the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs. Here I criticize blatant propaganda published by an organization funded by the US government for precisely that purpose. Almost an hour later, this comment is at -4 while the other is at +6. Agreement-based voting at it's finest, but I'm not going to let propaganda slide just because it pushes a viewpoint I agree with.
  - hungryhobo 7y ago
    sadly the echo chamber is strong here and anything said against vetted mainstream rhetorics will be downvoted
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  Sadly the tabloid-style coverage of this horrific Chinese government policy is causing people to discount the broader issue. The Chinese government sent government workers to take time off their normals jobs and live in the homes of Uighur Muslims suspected of disloyalty to the Chinese government. More than a million Uighur households had monitors sleeping in their rooms and watching their lives for troublesome signs like the children not using patriotic greetings or the parents wanting to keep Muslim dietary guidelines. In this article "relatives" refers to Han Chinese government monitors and "little brothers" and "little sisters" refers to the Muslims they watched. > The relatives were given written guidelines on how to conduct themselves. Based on reports from Uighur contacts in Urumqi and Khotan, such manuals provided guidelines and forms that needed to be filled out and then digitized for security databases. In a manual that was used in Kashgar prefecture, relatives were given specific instructions on how to get their little brothers and sisters to “let down their guard.” The manual, which was posted on the internet but taken down just as this story was going to press, advises relatives to show “warmth.” “Don’t lecture right away,” it suggests, and show concern regarding their families and bring candy for the children. It provides a checklist that included questions such as: “When entering the household, do family members appear flustered and use evasive language?” “Do they not watch TV programs at home and instead only watch VCD discs?” “Are there any religious items still hanging on the walls of the house?” > The manual instructs the relatives to tell their little brothers and sisters that they have been monitoring all internet and cell-phone communication that is coming from the family, so they should not even think about lying when it comes to their knowledge of Islam and religious extremism. > The manual also instructs them to help the villagers alleviate their poverty by giving them business advice and helping out around the household. They were told to report any resistance to “poverty alleviation activities.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/china-nightmare-homestay-xinjiang-uighur-monitor/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/china-nightmare-homesta...
AnthonyWnC 7y ago
NYT is not exactly a reliable source of news in China, actually none of US MSM are.
- peteretep 7y ago
  As compared to whom?
- yorwba 7y ago
  What about the Hong Kong government's own public broadcaster? https://gbcode.rthk.hk/TuniS/www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/thepulse_chi/episode/583530 https://gbcode.rthk.hk/TuniS/www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/...
- ivalm 7y ago
  Here is BBC (UK): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48825090 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48825090, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47157111 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47157111 Here is Deutsche Welle (Germany): https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-intimidates-uighurs-abroad-by-threatening-their-families/a-49554977 https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-intimidates-uighurs-abroad-b... Here is Japan Times (Japan): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/08/national/social-issues/uighurs-japan-speak-plight-kin-back-china/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/08/national/social... I could get more internationally sourced coverage if you really need. More or less the only MSM not covering the Uighur concentration camps are the Chinese MSM.
- 886 7y ago
  I know my comment will be downvoted for sure because it isn't a popular idea, but I'm still gonna comment on this. Reading news about any foreign country, including China, only from US MSM, is inherently biased (sampling bias). Maybe consider reading news from Chinese outlets in this case? I know people will start arguing that Chinese outlets are mainly propagandas because they are controlled by governments and they are not independent... But, but are we sure that Deutsche Welle or Japan Times are unbiased? For example, Deutsche Welle is funded by German government. [1], and the editors of the Japan Times were appointed by their government [2]. Yes, German and Japanese governments are more trustworthy than the Chinese government, but every country has its own foreign policy and political agenda. Are we sure that we are not being "brainwashed" by those media outlets? This is happening within the US as well. Think conservative news outlets vs liberal outlets. Citations: [1] https://www.dw.com/en/what-kind-of-company-is-deutsche-welle/a-3252998 https://www.dw.com/en/what-kind-of-company-is-deutsche-welle... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064544/http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/2123 https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064544/http://www.fccj.o...
fiblye 7y ago
I don’t think any major business in the world cares about this. They only care about things that affect their own revenue streams, and the average consumer isn’t boycotting companies for not doing anything about it. Seriously. Show me one major corporation that cited this as a reason for pulling out of China. I’m not justifying the actions—I’m saying western industries don’t care about genocide. Because they don’t.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  That’s a tautology. Major businesses can’t care about anything else. But major businesses aren’t the whole economy. Just a part.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    Loads of companies make political and social statements all the time. Whether it come to gay rights, protesting censorship, etc. None have said anything about the issues in Xinjiang.
billfruit 7y ago
The international community barely cares about what India is similarly doing in Kashmir, despite India being a democracy. In effect the most fundamental right in a democracy, the right to habeas corpus is suspended there. There is much politically informed anti-China coverage in the MSM, so it is hard to take reports on China from them without much skepticism. Even in Hong Kong it is on display that the police are largely acting with restraint similar to what a western police force might behave, it is the protesters who have been violent.
- sumedh 7y ago
  Is India running concentration camps as well?
  - hailk 7y ago
    > India is similarly doing in Kashmir. That line just proves how much of an echo chamber this place really is when it comes to international affairs. I live in India. I just had lunch with my colleague who is a Kashmiri native. His parents recently arrived from that state, and his father has returned back to run his medical shop. Though the situation is not ideal, it is a far cry away from being a breach of democracy or humanitarian concerns. The government has evoked constitutional law to maintain peace and order, largely as preventive measures against extremist operations and organisation. This has certainly affected the lives of daily citizens, no doubt, but the way western media blows it out of proportion one can just wonder whether it is genuinely clueless journalism or ideologically motivated smear campaign.
- jjcc 7y ago
  The international community as HNers know is just part of whole international community, all western countries. There is another part ignored by English media audience. I would speculate that most HNers see the other part as naive , bribed by China , or evil while Western countries are the owner of final truth and stand on the high moral ground. Totally exclude other possibilities. My speculation about YC is that there are always something beyond our understanding so they choose not to make judgement for time being. If that's the case I applaud their altitude. Modern human have serious cognitive defects in my view. ref: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-against-chinas-xinjiang-policies/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-a... Quote "... Those that signed the first letter, criticizing China, include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Signing the second letter, in defense of China’s policies, were: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Kuwait, Laos, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. ..."
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
How is that different from the US having fuck knows how many migrants (and children) in concentration camps, or "terrorists" in concentration camps, or slaves in overcrowded prisons, etc etc etc. I mean not specifically you, but why are people in these comments all moral policing a country halfway across the world while their own is just as bad?
- paulddraper 7y ago
  It's not even close to the same. > fuck knows how many ~38,000 [1] > migrants (and children) in concentration camps People who violated immigration law. (Also, many are free to leave, via voluntary departure.) > "terrorists" in concentration camps People who violated international law. > slaves in overcrowded prisons People who violated federal or state law. --- In particular, those laws do not prohibit religious faith or speech. I'd suggest a closer analogy to the Muslim re-education centers would be Japanese internment facilities in the U.S during the 1940s. -- [1] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/immigration-detention-in-the-united-states-a-primer/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/immigration-detention-in-t...
- NateEag 7y ago
  The migrants, while in a terrible plight, are technically coming into a foreign country without following the proper process. They're suffering a (deeply problematic) government response to that action, essentially a poorly done catch and deport process. China is systematically doing this to its own citizens, and intentionally harvesting body parts from them. Those are, in fact, quite different. China is

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

nradov 7y ago

Supposedly ethnic Han Chinese men are also being assigned by the government to sleep with the wives of detained Uyghur men. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/cosleeping-10312019160528.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/cosleeping-103120191...

tossAfterUsing 7y ago
hmm... i guess only the one's they've not yet sterilized? https://www.pop.org/the-plight-of-the-uyghur-people-2/ https://www.pop.org/the-plight-of-the-uyghur-people-2/ edit: wow... 2001
yorwba 7y ago
RFA is a US propaganda operation. Leave it up to them to make "sleeping with the wives of detained Uyghur men" sound like the job description of those government agents, rather than a consequence of poor people not having free guest beds on hand, so they have to share beds with someone, potentially with the whole household. Also clever use of "sleep with" to imply sex. (I don't doubt that some will abuse their power, but I'd expect Uyghur families to think far enough ahead to have another male relative in the same room, if not the same bed.) EDIT: I posted this as a bit of an experiment. In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601613 I link to a TV program criticising the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs. Here I criticize blatant propaganda published by an organization funded by the US government for precisely that purpose. Almost an hour later, this comment is at -4 while the other is at +6. Agreement-based voting at it's finest, but I'm not going to let propaganda slide just because it pushes a viewpoint I agree with.
- hungryhobo 7y ago
  sadly the echo chamber is strong here and anything said against vetted mainstream rhetorics will be downvoted
iudqnolq 7y ago
Sadly the tabloid-style coverage of this horrific Chinese government policy is causing people to discount the broader issue. The Chinese government sent government workers to take time off their normals jobs and live in the homes of Uighur Muslims suspected of disloyalty to the Chinese government. More than a million Uighur households had monitors sleeping in their rooms and watching their lives for troublesome signs like the children not using patriotic greetings or the parents wanting to keep Muslim dietary guidelines. In this article "relatives" refers to Han Chinese government monitors and "little brothers" and "little sisters" refers to the Muslims they watched. > The relatives were given written guidelines on how to conduct themselves. Based on reports from Uighur contacts in Urumqi and Khotan, such manuals provided guidelines and forms that needed to be filled out and then digitized for security databases. In a manual that was used in Kashgar prefecture, relatives were given specific instructions on how to get their little brothers and sisters to “let down their guard.” The manual, which was posted on the internet but taken down just as this story was going to press, advises relatives to show “warmth.” “Don’t lecture right away,” it suggests, and show concern regarding their families and bring candy for the children. It provides a checklist that included questions such as: “When entering the household, do family members appear flustered and use evasive language?” “Do they not watch TV programs at home and instead only watch VCD discs?” “Are there any religious items still hanging on the walls of the house?” > The manual instructs the relatives to tell their little brothers and sisters that they have been monitoring all internet and cell-phone communication that is coming from the family, so they should not even think about lying when it comes to their knowledge of Islam and religious extremism. > The manual also instructs them to help the villagers alleviate their poverty by giving them business advice and helping out around the household. They were told to report any resistance to “poverty alleviation activities.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/china-nightmare-homestay-xinjiang-uighur-monitor/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/china-nightmare-homesta...

AnthonyWnC 7y ago

NYT is not exactly a reliable source of news in China, actually none of US MSM are.

peteretep 7y ago
As compared to whom?
yorwba 7y ago
What about the Hong Kong government's own public broadcaster? https://gbcode.rthk.hk/TuniS/www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/thepulse_chi/episode/583530 https://gbcode.rthk.hk/TuniS/www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/...
ivalm 7y ago
Here is BBC (UK): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48825090 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48825090, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47157111 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47157111 Here is Deutsche Welle (Germany): https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-intimidates-uighurs-abroad-by-threatening-their-families/a-49554977 https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-intimidates-uighurs-abroad-b... Here is Japan Times (Japan): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/08/national/social-issues/uighurs-japan-speak-plight-kin-back-china/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/08/national/social... I could get more internationally sourced coverage if you really need. More or less the only MSM not covering the Uighur concentration camps are the Chinese MSM.
886 7y ago
I know my comment will be downvoted for sure because it isn't a popular idea, but I'm still gonna comment on this. Reading news about any foreign country, including China, only from US MSM, is inherently biased (sampling bias). Maybe consider reading news from Chinese outlets in this case? I know people will start arguing that Chinese outlets are mainly propagandas because they are controlled by governments and they are not independent... But, but are we sure that Deutsche Welle or Japan Times are unbiased? For example, Deutsche Welle is funded by German government. [1], and the editors of the Japan Times were appointed by their government [2]. Yes, German and Japanese governments are more trustworthy than the Chinese government, but every country has its own foreign policy and political agenda. Are we sure that we are not being "brainwashed" by those media outlets? This is happening within the US as well. Think conservative news outlets vs liberal outlets. Citations: [1] https://www.dw.com/en/what-kind-of-company-is-deutsche-welle/a-3252998 https://www.dw.com/en/what-kind-of-company-is-deutsche-welle... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064544/http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/2123 https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064544/http://www.fccj.o...

fiblye 7y ago

I don’t think any major business in the world cares about this. They only care about things that affect their own revenue streams, and the average consumer isn’t boycotting companies for not doing anything about it. Seriously. Show me one major corporation that cited this as a reason for pulling out of China. I’m not justifying the actions—I’m saying western industries don’t care about genocide. Because they don’t.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
That’s a tautology. Major businesses can’t care about anything else. But major businesses aren’t the whole economy. Just a part.
- fiblye 7y ago
  Loads of companies make political and social statements all the time. Whether it come to gay rights, protesting censorship, etc. None have said anything about the issues in Xinjiang.

billfruit 7y ago

The international community barely cares about what India is similarly doing in Kashmir, despite India being a democracy. In effect the most fundamental right in a democracy, the right to habeas corpus is suspended there. There is much politically informed anti-China coverage in the MSM, so it is hard to take reports on China from them without much skepticism. Even in Hong Kong it is on display that the police are largely acting with restraint similar to what a western police force might behave, it is the protesters who have been violent.

sumedh 7y ago
Is India running concentration camps as well?
- hailk 7y ago
  > India is similarly doing in Kashmir. That line just proves how much of an echo chamber this place really is when it comes to international affairs. I live in India. I just had lunch with my colleague who is a Kashmiri native. His parents recently arrived from that state, and his father has returned back to run his medical shop. Though the situation is not ideal, it is a far cry away from being a breach of democracy or humanitarian concerns. The government has evoked constitutional law to maintain peace and order, largely as preventive measures against extremist operations and organisation. This has certainly affected the lives of daily citizens, no doubt, but the way western media blows it out of proportion one can just wonder whether it is genuinely clueless journalism or ideologically motivated smear campaign.
jjcc 7y ago
The international community as HNers know is just part of whole international community, all western countries. There is another part ignored by English media audience. I would speculate that most HNers see the other part as naive , bribed by China , or evil while Western countries are the owner of final truth and stand on the high moral ground. Totally exclude other possibilities. My speculation about YC is that there are always something beyond our understanding so they choose not to make judgement for time being. If that's the case I applaud their altitude. Modern human have serious cognitive defects in my view. ref: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-against-chinas-xinjiang-policies/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-a... Quote "... Those that signed the first letter, criticizing China, include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Signing the second letter, in defense of China’s policies, were: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Kuwait, Laos, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. ..."

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

How is that different from the US having fuck knows how many migrants (and children) in concentration camps, or "terrorists" in concentration camps, or slaves in overcrowded prisons, etc etc etc. I mean not specifically you, but why are people in these comments all moral policing a country halfway across the world while their own is just as bad?

paulddraper 7y ago
It's not even close to the same. > fuck knows how many ~38,000 [1] > migrants (and children) in concentration camps People who violated immigration law. (Also, many are free to leave, via voluntary departure.) > "terrorists" in concentration camps People who violated international law. > slaves in overcrowded prisons People who violated federal or state law. --- In particular, those laws do not prohibit religious faith or speech. I'd suggest a closer analogy to the Muslim re-education centers would be Japanese internment facilities in the U.S during the 1940s. -- [1] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/immigration-detention-in-the-united-states-a-primer/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/immigration-detention-in-t...
NateEag 7y ago
The migrants, while in a terrible plight, are technically coming into a foreign country without following the proper process. They're suffering a (deeply problematic) government response to that action, essentially a poorly done catch and deport process. China is systematically doing this to its own citizens, and intentionally harvesting body parts from them. Those are, in fact, quite different. China is