Australia to decide action on Chinese ‘concentration camps’

Hundreds of Uighurs call South Australia home. And all of them know someone locked up in their old home – Xinjiang, in China. Australia now has to decide what to do next.

• China harassing Uighurs in Australia: US
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Australia is set to decide what it will do about “concentration camps” in China where up to a million Uighurs are detained.

Up to a million Uighurs – a Muslim ethnic minority who live in the nation’s northwest – are being held in what have been described as “concentration camps”. Reports put the figure as high as three million, but Communist Party officials say that’s incorrect.

They refer to them as education and training centres.

Satellite photos of Xinjiang have captured the expansion of the enormous infrastructure of the camps. And some reports claim crematoriums are being built, which is frightening as Uighurs are Muslims and don’t burn their dead.

The Uighurs are locked up or tightly controlled by the Chinese Government.

The New York Times recently uncovered documents that show the extent of the crackdown, and how Uighurs sent to the centres are forced to study Chinese, forced into low-paying work, or have Chinese people living in their homes, watching them.

Often, Uighurs just disappear. But the Government scoffs at accusations of human rights abuses, saying they’re imprisoning only “terrorists”, and giving other Muslims education opportunities.

Uighurs who have managed to escape China have formed a global diaspora, and one of the oldest communities is in Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs.

Adam Turan, whose father died not long after being released from a Xinjiang camp, is the spokesman for this group, which is mainly based around Gilles Plains and Modbury.

They constantly monitor what’s happening in Xinjiang, worried about the fate of family members and friends.

Adam Turan with a picture of his late father. Adam is in exile in Australia. His father was locked up in Xinjiang, and died shortly after his release. Picture: Matt Turner

Mr Turan, the head of the East Turkistan Australian Association, came to SA in 2011 to study international relations, and works with children with disabilities. He says at least 1000 Uighurs live in the state.

“Most of us have someone in the camps,” he said. “They have family members in the camps or they know someone in the camps.”

Mr Turan doesn’t know what’s happened to his siblings – two sisters and four brothers.

“The last time I got information about my family members, one of my older brothers, who was detained with my Dad, is still inside,” he said.

“And I know my sister was released 10 days before they took my father and one of my brothers in 2017.

“They released my father but kept my brother. I don’t know about the others. I can’t access the information.

“The Chinese officials said every single one of us should be re-educated, should be sent to the camps and indoctrinated. The Communist Party wants us to fully obey them and assimilate.

“They want us to eat, work, live and die like the Chinese. They don’t want us to be different. They want us to be fully assimilated.”

Tensions between China and other nations have been escalating on a number of fronts. There are regular media reports about the Chinese Government’s attempt to infiltrate or influence the Australian Government.

Australia’s spy agencies are briefing politicians on the dangers of China’s surveillance capacity and willingness to blackmail people in power.

China’s increasingly aggressive expansion in the South China Sea has sparked a standoff with the US, which has warships and aircraft in the region.

President Xi Jinping has set up China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure project that means China’s sway over smaller countries – such as those in the South Pacific – is ever more powerful.

Australia’s decision to stop telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the 5G network has infuriated Beijing, which argues it is a private company that has nothing to do with the Chinese Government.

The Australian Government won’t say so explicitly, but intelligence agencies have warned them that Huawei could use the network to monitor citizens.

“Just be aware, be vigilant and stand up for human values and human dignity,” Mr Turan said. He wants Australia to join other nations which have condemned China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

More than that, he wants the Government to pass the Magnitsky Act, named after Sergei Magnitsky, who worked to expose fraud within the Russia Government and died in a Moscow prison in 2009. The Act has been passed by the US Government, and the European Union is on the verge of putting its own version into place. The Federal Government is currently looking at its own version, which would allow for sanctions to be imposed on those responsible for human rights abuses. As well, any Australian assets could be seized and they could be banned from entering the country.

“What I want the Australian Government to do is pass the Magnitsky Act,” Mr Turan said. “We tell the Hong Kong (democracy protesters) that today’s Xinjiang or East Turkestan is tomorrow’s Hong Kong.”

The Advertiser met a delegation from the Chinese Government recently. As they walked into the Waymouth St building, a striking figure was on the big TV screens that dot the newsroom.

It was Rushan Abbas, a prominent activist who is travelling the globe to talk about the Uighurs’ plight. She has been in Canberra urging politicians to adopt the Magnitsky Act. She has met with the Adelaide community to talk about what she calls a “program of eradication”.

“The Uighur people in Adelaide are the most established community in Australia,” she said. “And almost every one of them has family members, friends, extended family, cousins in the concentration camps right now.”

She had been a pro-democracy activist in China, but fled just before the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. She compares the situation to Nazi Germany, and how the world ignored what was happening until it was far too late.

The Chinese Government’s explanation of what’s happening in Xinjiang is quite different. China’s vice-consul general in Adelaide, Lijun Pi, said vocational education and training centres were to “root out extreme thoughts” and “enhance the rule of law awareness”.

He pointed to terrorist attacks in the region and said since the Government had introduced deradicalisation programs there had been no more attacks.

“The vocational education and training in Xinjiang is a concrete step and manifestation of China’s imple­mentation of the international community’s counter-terrorism and deradicalisation initiatives, including the UN’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism,” he said.

“The allegations that there are over one or even two million trainees detained in the centres are a total fabrication and entirely groundless. At present, all trainees who learned a curriculum that include standard spoken and written Chinese, understanding of the law, vocational skills and deradicalisation have graduated, and with the help of governments, have achieved stable employment and enjoyed a better quality of life.

“Uighurs (are) one of China’s 56 ethnic groups. Like Australian Aboriginal people study English, Uighur people study Uighur and Chinese. It is quite natural. It is not assimilation.”