Debunking the Uyghur Genocide: A resource list

Claims of the Uyghur genocide have horrified the readers of western media outlets. China has been depicted as committing the new Holocaust, with “China watchers” suggesting that as many as 6 million Uyghur Muslims are being held in concentration camps or murdered outright by Communist forces. But how does the evidence hold up? These accusations of Uyghur Genocide are the US government’s latest attempt at atrocity propaganda to demonize a foreign country, brought to you by the same people who lied about WMDs in Iraq and chemical weapons in Syria. The US State Department will stop at nothing to justify a new war. The CIA actively funds religious extremists in Xinjiang because it wants to roll back the achievements of socialism and force the region to share the same fate as Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. In this resource list, I will debunk some of the most egregious claims about Uyghur genocide from the imperialist press, as well as highlight the modern achievements of Xinjiang.

The skyline of Ürümqi, the capital and largest city of Xinjiang. The modern achievements of Xinjiang are rarely shown in western media.

Claim: There are studies by expert researchers proving that more than 6 million Uyghurs are being detained in concentration camps, making Xinjiang the site of a modern Holocaust.

Reality: The original “evidence” of 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps stems from US propaganda outlets and far-right “researchers” like Adrian Zenz. These numbers could not be independently verified, and other media sources that repeat these claims merely cite each other or this original, US-backed research. Zenz himself is a known antisemitic conspiracy theorist, far-right evangelical, and Islamophobe who has written that the Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity will be wiped out by God in a “fiery furnace”. Why would a German with such hateful views toward Jews and Muslims be such a champion of Uyghur rights? It was later found that Zenz had received $625,000 from Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist Steve Bannon to help him fabricate the story of Uyghur genocide.

Zenz has never traveled to China, nor does he speak or read Chinese. Yet his research is the sole source of evidence cited by media outlets claiming there is a “Uyghur genocide”.

But you just said 1 million! How about that 6 million figure? The number of Uyghurs being held in the alleged concentration camps keeps changing, by multiple factors, often from the same twitter accounts and media outlets. This indicates that western propaganda sources have no information on the true numbers and are relying on the trust of the reader to merely believe what they claim rather than providing evidence of the numbers that can be verified by sources outside of those directly funded by the US government.

Another twitter blue-check showing us he has exactly 0 clue how many Uyghurs are being held in camps.

Claim: Uyghur protests and riots are a genuine revolt by the people who want to reject the yoke of Chinese oppression.

Reality: The CIA directly admitted to their role in funding Uyghur “unrest” as a plot to destabilize China’s western region, fuel hatred and ethnic violence toward Han people, and provoke the government into sending forces like police and military to restore peace. These protests are not genuine, nor do they represent what Uyghur citizens want — they are the product of millions of dollars of CIA funding. Destabilizing regions by arming right-wing militants is exactly what the CIA was built for, and Xinjiang was merely the next on its long list of targets. The same people are responsible for creating the humanitarian disasters in Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq, using many of the same tactics. The war criminals at the CIA already used social breakdown and ethnic violence to tear apart apart socialist countries like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia- this is known as Balkanization. We as Communists should be grateful that China has thwarted this imperialist attack on Uyghur sovereignty and continued to defend Xinjiang from CIA-backed attempts to send it down the same path as Yugoslavia.

The CIA openly admits to their role in fomenting ethnic violence in Xinjiang, yet this has a minimal fraction of the views as CNN and other mainstream outlets calling to punish China

Claim: The international community condemns China for its genocide of Uyghurs.

Reality: This so-called “international community” is a small, select group of countries friendly to the US, including many former colonizers in Europe and Japan. The majority of countries actually support China and its policies of poverty alleviation, deradicalization from religious extremism, and economic development in Xinjiang. A map shows the 37 countries supporting China and its policies in Xinjiang, and the 22 countries condemning China for Uyghur genocide. Countries outlined in black are also member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

The so-called “international community” frequently leaves out the voice of the majority. Only wealthy, western countries and Japan are the ones that matter enough to the corporate press in order to be considered the “international community”

Claim: The UN even reported that China was holding 1 million Uyghurs in camps.

Reality: Western media outlets falsely claimed that the UN made a report about 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps. This claim originated from Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a group that enjoys heavy funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a US government NGO. Western media outlets like Reuters, NYT, and Washington Post merely picked up the story and cited CHRD as their primary source, never investigating this false statement any further.

In fact, China has invited the international community to visit Xinjiang many times. The UN’s Geneva delegation, representing 8 countries, visited Xinjiang in 2019 and maintained positive reviews of the area. Religious leaders from Islamic countries who visited China agreed that no such camps existed. The group included leaders from Palestine — how many of the countries accusing China of Uyghur genocide even recognize Palestine? The rest of the countries that showed up for independent investigations, such as India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Kazakhstan, found only evidence of positive changes in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the EU countries, the US, and Japan have declined every invitation to visit Xinjiang. The BBC did make a “surprise” visit, purportedly to catch Chinese guards in the act, only to find that the Uyghurs were leaving the vocational training center for the weekend.

Diplomats from 12 Global South countries visited Xinjiang. They toured cities, Xinjiang’s vocational training facilities, and cultural sites like Mosques. China’s goal is to build up Xinjiang’s economic development by investing in education, renewable energy, and infrastructure for all of its residents.

Claim: China is demolishing Mosques such as the Keriya Aitika Mosque.

Reality: The Keriya Aitika Mosque is still there. China is renovating Mosques by building new plazas, public facilities, parking, and other amenities for worshippers. Major sources like the Guardian relied on satellite images to claim that China was on a “mission” to destroy hundreds of Mosques. Grainy satellite imagery is not evidence. But the scare tactics worked as millions of retweets and shares packed the internet with yet more “proof” that China was suppressing religious groups.

China invests heavily in cultural revival and preservation — cultural traditions are the fabric of Chinese Socialism, especially the traditions of minority groups like Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Tibetans, Zhuang, and Mongolians. China spends millions each year renovating religious structures like Mosques, Churches, and Buddhist Temples. Sometimes, an old structure is so decrepit and dangerous that it must be demolished so that a brand new one can be built. Satellite imagery deceives the public because it lacks context. A demolished house of worship does not mean it is gone forever, as the government often builds better and safer structures to improve the experience for worshippers.

What was demolished: the old gatehouse in front of the Prayer Hall, NOT the Prayer Hall itself which remains intact today. What was added: a new plaza in front of the mosque, public restrooms nearby, new construction beside the Mosque complete with minarets, and a parking lot for worshippers who commute from further away.

The goal: to restore China’s Mosques and improve their facilities for more worshippers. The famous Dongguan Mosque in northwestern China is an example of this goal achieved.

Look closely at the Dongguan Mosque. Can you see a blend of Islamic, Tibetan, and Han styles?

Claim: We need to listen to the lived experiences of Uyghur survivors who escaped Xinjiang.

Reality: Defectors are funded by the US government to tell shocking and gruesome stories that are filled with inconsistencies. Defectors also often change their stories or add new stories that contradict their old ones.

Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur activist who claims to be a survivor of the Chinese concentration camps, actually worked in Guantanamo Bay in 2003, which has well-documented record of human rights violations against Muslim prisoners. She also works with the widely-discredited Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. When confronted in her AMA thread about her history of working for the CIA, she claimed she was only a translator for Uyghur prisoners, but also defended Guantanamo Bay’s existence. Why would an agent at the single most violent entity toward Muslims suddenly care so much about Muslims?

Rushan Abbas, a longtime contractor with the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, and numerous other US government agencies, poses with famed advocate for Muslim rights, GOP senator Marco Rubio

Uyghur dissident Sayragul Sauytbay first claimed that she did not see any violence, only that they did not have TV and they never had any meat. However, later she changed her story, claiming that the prisoners were forced to eat pork. She also added a new story that she saw police raping prisoners in public, and anyone who showed facial expressions or couldn’t watch was taken away and disappeared.

Western governments pay defectors from countries like China, North Korea, and Iraq to lie about atrocities and create international outrage and condemnation. Names like Park Yeonmi, Nayirah are other examples of defectors whose words have not a single ounce of truth. Just because a person fits the correct “identity” does not mean their words represent the truth about their country. Many of these dissidents are based in New York City, Washington D.C., London, South Korea, and Turkey. Merely the location of the “activism” says a lot about the money funding its existence in such expensive locations.

Claim: We would hear more Uyghurs in Xinjiang speaking out against this genocide if their voices weren’t being suppressed by Chinese state media.

Reality: Uyghurs in Xinjiang are indeed speaking out…against the false claims by western media that they are suffering a genocide. The only suppression of Uyghur voices comes from western media outlets affiliated with the United States and its allies. Major social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube have quietly suspended or banned Uyghur accounts that challenge the State Department narrative. The reason the western public has not heard these voices is because of the coordinated effort by western media outlets and the US government to censor their inconvenient truth.

Guli, a Uyghur travel blogger who lives in Xinjiang, describes her channel getting lots of downvotes and harassment.

Real Xinjiang was taken down by YouTube.

However, Uyghurs in China aren’t merely victims of western suppression. They are pushing back on the narrative and holding the corporate press accountable for their damage. Young Uyghurs in China are actually suing ASPI and Adrian Zenz for Islamophobic slander, falsehoods, and ruining local economies in Xinjiang.

Claim: China is engaging in cultural genocide by suppressing the Uyghur language.

Reality: The Uyghur language isn’t being suppressed. In fact, it’s one of the languages printed on all Chinese currency. In Xinjiang, it can be found all over street and road signs, in public spaces like schools and hospitals, and cultural areas like Mosques, museums, and arts centers. Children in Xinjiang learn the Uyghur script in school, and people who move to Xinjiang are encouraged to learn the language.

Chinese 100 Yuan banknote with five of the most common scripts used by Chinese people: Romanized Mandarin Pinyin, Mongolian, Uyghur, Tibetan and Zhuang. Uyghurs are one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups in China.

Claim: The East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM) is not a terror group, they merely want Uyghur self-determination.

Reality: The Al-Qaeda affiliated East Turkestan separatist movement was long considered a terror group by the US government. After the 9/11 attacks, future “Uyghur activist” Rushan Abbas was busy detaining and interrogating Uyghur suspects in Guantanamo Bay. The US bombed Uyghur militants along with the Taliban as recently as 2018. By 2020, the US government had quietly removed the ETIM from its list of terror organizations. The group was linked to the 2009 Ürümqi Riots, a deadly outbreak of ethnic violence in which Uyghur militants killed 197 people and injured over 1700 others, mainly Han and Hui residents in Ürümqi.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of victims were Han and Hui, western media spun this as an “attack on Uyghur rights” and focused on the Chinese government’s arrest of the US-backed instigators. Others claimed that thousands of Uyghurs had been killed in the riots, a blatant lie.

Claim: The US passed a bill preventing forced labor in Xinjiang because it wants the world to boycott products produced through slave labor.

Reality: The USA’s bill on the prevention of forced labor in Xinjiang is really an economic attack on products from Xinjiang that compete with the American agricultural industry. By isolating Xinjiang products from the global market, this bill accomplishes two goals: (1) It boosts American agricultural production and profits, and (2) it hurts the economic prospects of residents in Xinjiang and stability of the region, weakening it and making it more vulnerable to social unrest.

Claim: We can’t dismiss the ample photo evidence, footage, and government documents proving that a genocide is taking place.

Reality: Western media mislabels photos, uses photos from completely different locations, and writes false subtitles on videos to mislead the public. The average western viewer does not understand Asian languages and lacks the ability to read Chinese and Arabic scripts, making it very easy for the media to mislead them by using photos and footage with blatantly false labeling. Some examples below:

The famous photo of “Uyghur prisoners” dressed in blue uniforms, lined up in a “re-education camp” actually comes from an early 2017 picture of nonviolent inmates in Xinjiang listening to a public speech in a regular jail. The inmates are not all Uyghurs, and it wasn’t just prisoners who listened to the speech.

Even Wikipedia continues to feature this photo on its article of “Uyghur Genocide” despite overwhelming proof that the prisoners in the photo are serving time for nonviolent offenses, and were not imprisoned because of their Uyghur ethnicity

The video of a supposed Uyghur being beaten for having a copy of a Quran, was actually of Indonesian police beating a pickpocket.

Some pictures of supposed Uyghurs in Chinese detention camps, including that of a crying child, are mislabeled pictures from unrelated protests in Istanbul, Thailand, and Xinjiang. The crying child is from a group of migrants who were rescued from human trafficking.

Claim of a Chinese police officer strangling a Uyghur woman caught praying is actually a 2018 video of a police officer restraining a violent drunk woman in a Shenzhen hotel, which is nowhere near Xinjiang.

Picture of a supposed Uyghurs working in a “forced labor” factory, first published by Forbes, is actually a photo of a factory in a Spanish speaking country. Note that the sign circled in red says “no smoking” in Spanish. Forbes later changed the picture without announcing their error.

A Change.org picture of a “Uyghur” with his eyes/mouth/ears sewn shut is actually a picture of Abas Amini, an Iranian Kurdish refugee protesting the UK’s treatment of asylum seekers in 2003.

Video of a young Uyghur girl crying as she is “taken away” from her mother is actually a video of a Uyghur nurse saying good bye to her daughter before heading to work on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the strict guidelines to contain the spread of COVID, the mother knows it will be several weeks before she can see her daughter again. The two are later seen reunited in their apartment after the mother has finished her shift.

The mother in the misused video has expressed her frustration that her wholesome home video has been taken out of context and used to fuel the lies about Xinjiang genocide.

Video of shackled, bound “prisoners” in a dark room is actually a video from a Taiwanese BDSM club.

Other footage of Uyghurs supposedly being “forced” to drink alcohol are also falsely labeled videos of people at a restaurant enjoying a normal drink.

CNN interviews a “police officer” who claims to have tortured Uyghurs and forced them to confess. A close-up of his uniform patch shows incorrect Chinese characters, indicating that his uniform is fake and that the person is an actor impersonating a police officer.

Western media again relies on the inability of their audience to read Chinese characters. Outlandish claims such as this one are debunked in an instant by anyone who has a basic level of Chinese reading.

CNN “torture camp” is actually a photo of a middle school. CNN relies on the assumption that its viewers cannot read Chinese so it can use photos of any building and claim they’re detention camps.

Study hard, kids! That way you won’t end up using a picture of a middle school and calling it a concentration camp because you can’t read the the name of your school.

A censored photo supposedly showing Chinese fascist death squads murdering Uyghur Muslims in broad daylight is actually a pile of spilled boxes of a red condiment. The media weaponizes censorship and mislabeled photos to create gruesome atrocity propaganda.

What appears to be a censored, gory body is actually a mess of spilled drinks and cardboard boxes

Highlighting Xinjiang’s achievements today: The west can try all it wants, but it cannot stop the progress in Xinjiang. China builds, America bombs. Socialism is here to stay, and Uyghurs along with the rest of the residents of Xinjiang are enjoying health, education, and transit advances that most Americans can only dream of.

Rebiya Kadeer’s son and granddaughters speak out against her imperialist lies about Xinjiang, showing what their lives are really like in Ürümqi today. English subtitles are in the video.

A medical student, an artistic design student, and their proud father show us around their city and their daily lives in Ürümqi. Even though Kadeer is suspected of orchestrating the devastating terror attacks of 2009, her son and granddaughters are living peaceful, happy lives in China.

So, why does the west care so much about Uyghur genocide and Xinjiang independence after they have bombed countless Muslim countries? It’s part of the US Government’s plan to break up China and stop its Belt and Road Initiative.

The Belt and Road Initiative isn’t the only thing Uyghurs and other residents in Xinjiang can look forward to. Uyghurs now enjoy a high speed rail line that connects Ürümqi to Lanzhou.

Construction on this line began in 2009. The first ever high speed rail line in Xinjiang, the Lanzhou–Xinjiang high-speed railway boasts speeds of up to 155 mph (217 mph planned for the future).

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