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I have issue with the laziness of the report regarding the Xinjiang genocide reporting. The whole article is centered on this statement: """ where UN experts

I have issue with the laziness of the report regarding the Xinjiang genocide reporting. The whole article is centered on this statement: """ where UN experts and rights groups estimate over a million people have been detained in recent years. """ The UN experts and right groups are not named. But I assume it was Adrian Zenz who was throughly discredited in [1] and the so-called evidences are from satalie images analyzed by non professional intelligence analyst like Ms. Xu Xiuzhong [2] who by all means have good faith but seriously lacking the credit to command such a large scale political crusade against China. Disclaimer: I was born and raised in China and live in silicone valley for the last 10 years. And I think the current political narrative is from fear of unknown, and CCP needs to adjust it's policy to be more open. But I cannot see any serious evidence of large scale concentration camp. Everything so far presented are no where close to the scale reported, aka 1 million. [1] https://thegrayzone.com/tag/adrian-zenz/ https://thegrayzone.com/tag/adrian-zenz/ [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UDkC1ZMFBCg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UDkC1ZMFBCg Edit: > Zenz isn't discredited, it's just the PRC propaganda apparatus is trying its hardest to smear him as part of their coverup. Grayzone has no connection with CCP. And AFAIK, none of the CCP propaganda apparatus actually did any original research to attack Adrian Zenz. All I read is from Grayzone and Daniel Dumbrill, both are providing fact-checked new reporting. Zenz is discredited by Grayzone report. And TBH, I dont think Zenz should be treated as authority in the first place. This guy has not set foot on Xinjiang in his lifetime...

seppin 5y ago
Adrian Zenz has not been "throughly discredited" as you say, quite the opposite. The ad hominem attacks from Chinese bots/trolls (apparently he's a Christian fundamentalist/extremist now) are a pretty good sign that he is reporting on exactly what they don't want reported on. Also please don't link to thegrayzone if you want any further argument to be heard with an open mind. They have a terrible track record of defending authoritarians for political reasons.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-inter...
- gre 5y ago
  Daniel Dunbrill's channel has some good videos where he actually visits Xinjiang and interviews the supposed victims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p57qyMAySYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p57qyMAySYc
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Daniel Dunbrill This guy? https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/china-based-foreigners-defending-beijing-xinjiang-genocide https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/chi...: > Dumbrill’s YouTube channel has 140,000 subscribers while his videos, commentaries and interviews – on topics such as the Hong Kong protests – have previously appeared on CGTN. His long track record of providing fodder for Chinese state media to throw at the West has earned him special privileges not accorded to veteran foreign correspondents in the country. > Last year, he partnered with CGTN to travel the length of the Tibet autonomous region, interviewing residents and visiting schools to highlight the successes of the Communist Party’s poverty alleviation campaign. In contrast, foreign journalists who gain permission to enter Tibet are accompanied by government minders and forced to strictly adhere to an imposed itinerary, with little time for independent reporting. > While Chinese and foreign reporters do not need prior permission to enter the Xinjiang autonomous region, many journalists from Western media outlets have reported being tailed by security forces on arrival. CGTN is China's version of Russia Today. This is what real reporters encounter when they try to go there: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/insider/china-xinjiang-reporting-surveillance-uighur.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/insider/china-xinjiang-re...: > Chinese authorities have made the [Xinjiang] story a huge challenge to cover. Their constant following makes true reporting almost impossible. In Kashgar, the best I could do was take photos and videos and hope police wouldn’t delete them. > ...Another time, a police officer stopped us close to our hotel. Inspecting Chris’s photos, he deleted a shot of a camel. When Chris asked why that photo was deleted, the man turned to Chris and said, “In China, there are no whys.” > It was good advice. As we pulled down another road in search of a re-education camp, a car sped in front of us, cut us off, and stopped. Men jumped out unfurling a spike strip directly in front of our car. > “Road’s closed,” we were told. We didn’t ask why. > Each evening as we returned to our hotel, we would pass a boarding school surrounded by tall fences topped with barbed wire. Socializing in clusters in the twilight, the adolescent students looked very much like prisoners. > How they came to be there was impossible to discern and we couldn’t safely ask them. With the followers on our heels, any contact would be dangerous. Often we were left with the painful necessity of remaining remote, even when locals tried to be friendly. This is worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/22/technology/xinjiang-uyghurs-china-propaganda.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/22/technology/xi...
tablespoon 5y ago
Just to echo this dead comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647592 > But I assume it was Adrian Zenz who was throughly discredited in [1] Zenz isn't discredited, it's just the PRC propaganda apparatus is trying its hardest to smear him as part of their coverup. Also thegrayzone.com is so unreliable that it was banned from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#The_Grayzone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per.... > Grayzone has no connection with CCP. But it's the kind of outlet that would echo it: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/china-based-foreigners-defending-beijing-xinjiang-genocide https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/chi...: > Blumenthal’s website [The Grayzone] has been accused of whitewashing the crimes of authoritarian countries, from Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela to Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, while failing to highlight flaws in regimes that are staunchly opposed to US foreign policy. > And TBH, I dont think Zenz should be treated as authority in the first place. This guy has not set foot on Xinjiang in his lifetime... Why would that matter? All of our authorities on Ancient Rome never set foot in the Roman Empire.
- gre 5y ago
  Can you link some more sources about the gray zone? Being banned from Wikipedia just makes sense because they are a blog and not a primary source. I would like to see a writeup of what they get wrong because their podcast Moderate Rebels [1] is very informative and well-researched. [1] https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebels https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebels
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Can you link some more sources about the gray zone? Being banned from Wikipedia just makes sense because they are a blog and not a primary source. IIRC, it was mainly banned because "there is consensus that The Grayzone publishes false or fabricated information" (as the summary states). I believe this was one of the examples: https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-to-feed-fake-news https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-t... (Grayzone presenting the forced confession of an anti-regime activist as legitimate). Here's another about Max Blumenthal himself fabricating a quote: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/did-israel-train-american-interrogators-in-torture-updated/249630/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/di.... There were questions about its editorial oversight, but those were secondary. Basically it's one of those sites, like RT, that has a political position and has little problem with pushing disinformation to support it.

seppin 5y ago

Adrian Zenz has not been "throughly discredited" as you say, quite the opposite. The ad hominem attacks from Chinese bots/trolls (apparently he's a Christian fundamentalist/extremist now) are a pretty good sign that he is reporting on exactly what they don't want reported on. Also please don't link to thegrayzone if you want any further argument to be heard with an open mind. They have a terrible track record of defending authoritarians for political reasons.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-inter...

gre 5y ago
Daniel Dunbrill's channel has some good videos where he actually visits Xinjiang and interviews the supposed victims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p57qyMAySYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p57qyMAySYc
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Daniel Dunbrill This guy? https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/china-based-foreigners-defending-beijing-xinjiang-genocide https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/chi...: > Dumbrill’s YouTube channel has 140,000 subscribers while his videos, commentaries and interviews – on topics such as the Hong Kong protests – have previously appeared on CGTN. His long track record of providing fodder for Chinese state media to throw at the West has earned him special privileges not accorded to veteran foreign correspondents in the country. > Last year, he partnered with CGTN to travel the length of the Tibet autonomous region, interviewing residents and visiting schools to highlight the successes of the Communist Party’s poverty alleviation campaign. In contrast, foreign journalists who gain permission to enter Tibet are accompanied by government minders and forced to strictly adhere to an imposed itinerary, with little time for independent reporting. > While Chinese and foreign reporters do not need prior permission to enter the Xinjiang autonomous region, many journalists from Western media outlets have reported being tailed by security forces on arrival. CGTN is China's version of Russia Today. This is what real reporters encounter when they try to go there: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/insider/china-xinjiang-reporting-surveillance-uighur.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/insider/china-xinjiang-re...: > Chinese authorities have made the [Xinjiang] story a huge challenge to cover. Their constant following makes true reporting almost impossible. In Kashgar, the best I could do was take photos and videos and hope police wouldn’t delete them. > ...Another time, a police officer stopped us close to our hotel. Inspecting Chris’s photos, he deleted a shot of a camel. When Chris asked why that photo was deleted, the man turned to Chris and said, “In China, there are no whys.” > It was good advice. As we pulled down another road in search of a re-education camp, a car sped in front of us, cut us off, and stopped. Men jumped out unfurling a spike strip directly in front of our car. > “Road’s closed,” we were told. We didn’t ask why. > Each evening as we returned to our hotel, we would pass a boarding school surrounded by tall fences topped with barbed wire. Socializing in clusters in the twilight, the adolescent students looked very much like prisoners. > How they came to be there was impossible to discern and we couldn’t safely ask them. With the followers on our heels, any contact would be dangerous. Often we were left with the painful necessity of remaining remote, even when locals tried to be friendly. This is worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/22/technology/xinjiang-uyghurs-china-propaganda.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/22/technology/xi...

tablespoon 5y ago

Just to echo this dead comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647592 > But I assume it was Adrian Zenz who was throughly discredited in [1] Zenz isn't discredited, it's just the PRC propaganda apparatus is trying its hardest to smear him as part of their coverup. Also thegrayzone.com is so unreliable that it was banned from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#The_Grayzone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per.... > Grayzone has no connection with CCP. But it's the kind of outlet that would echo it: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/china-based-foreigners-defending-beijing-xinjiang-genocide https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127611/chi...: > Blumenthal’s website [The Grayzone] has been accused of whitewashing the crimes of authoritarian countries, from Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela to Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, while failing to highlight flaws in regimes that are staunchly opposed to US foreign policy. > And TBH, I dont think Zenz should be treated as authority in the first place. This guy has not set foot on Xinjiang in his lifetime... Why would that matter? All of our authorities on Ancient Rome never set foot in the Roman Empire.

gre 5y ago
Can you link some more sources about the gray zone? Being banned from Wikipedia just makes sense because they are a blog and not a primary source. I would like to see a writeup of what they get wrong because their podcast Moderate Rebels [1] is very informative and well-researched. [1] https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebels https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebels
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Can you link some more sources about the gray zone? Being banned from Wikipedia just makes sense because they are a blog and not a primary source. IIRC, it was mainly banned because "there is consensus that The Grayzone publishes false or fabricated information" (as the summary states). I believe this was one of the examples: https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-to-feed-fake-news https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-t... (Grayzone presenting the forced confession of an anti-regime activist as legitimate). Here's another about Max Blumenthal himself fabricating a quote: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/did-israel-train-american-interrogators-in-torture-updated/249630/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/di.... There were questions about its editorial oversight, but those were secondary. Basically it's one of those sites, like RT, that has a political position and has little problem with pushing disinformation to support it.