China ‘separates Muslim children from families’
Internment camps and schools being built by authorities

China is deliberately separating Muslim children from their families in the region of Xinjiang, according to reports this morning.
New research has found that in one township alone more than 400 children have lost not just one but both parents to internment, either in the camps or in prison. This constitutes a “campaign” to “systematically remove children from their roots,” says the BBC.
As hundreds of thousands of adults are detained in the vast camps, a “rapid, large-scale campaign” to build boarding schools is under way, reports the BBC, in what it says is “the most comprehensive evidence to date about what is happening to children in the region”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Dr Adrian Zenz, a respected German researcher, says campuses have been enlarged, with new dormitories and hugely inflated capacity. He adds that the authorities have been building their ability to care full-time for large numbers of children while simultaneously building the detention camps for the adults.
In 2017, the number of children enrolled in kindergartens in Xinjiang increased by more than half a million, with Uighur and other Muslim minority children making up more than 90% of that increase.
Uighurs are members of Xinjiang's largest, predominantly Muslim ethnic group. Over the past three years, they and others have found themselves detained after China began holding hundreds of thousands of people from minority groups in giant camps.
Although Beijing insists the Uighurs are being educated in “vocational training centres” to counter violent religious extremism, testimony and other evidence has revealed that many are being detained for simply expressing their faith by wearing a veil or praying.
Xu Guixiang, a senior official with Xinjiang's Propaganda Department, told the BBC that the state denies caring for large numbers of children left parentless.
“If all family members have been sent to vocational training then that family must have a severe problem,” he said, laughing. “I've never seen such a case.”
“Despite China’s efforts to tell what is really happening in Xinjiang, some western media and politicians insist on making and spreading fake news,” said the state-run Global Times.
However, Dr Zenz says: “I believe the evidence points to what we must call cultural genocide.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
August 2 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include a tariff self-own, rough times at the Trump golf course, and more
-
5 inexcusably hilarious cartoons about Ghislaine Maxwell angling for a pardon
Cartoons Artists take on the circle of life, Ghislaine's Island, and more
-
Ozzy Osbourne obituary: heavy metal wildman and lovable reality TV dad
In the Spotlight For Osbourne, metal was 'not the music of hell but rather the music of Earth, not a fantasy but a survival guide'
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctions
The Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
One year after mass protests, why are Kenyans taking to the streets again?
today's big question More than 60 protesters died during demonstrations in 2024
-
What happens if tensions between India and Pakistan boil over?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As the two nuclear-armed neighbors rattle their sabers in the wake of a terrorist attack on the contested Kashmir region, experts worry that the worst might be yet to come
-
Japan is opening up to immigration – but is it welcoming immigrants?
Under the Radar Plummeting birth rates and ageing population leaves closed-off country 'no choice' but to admit foreign workers, but tensions are growing with newly arrived Muslims
-
Why Russia removed the Taliban's terrorist designation
The Explainer Russia had designated the Taliban as a terrorist group over 20 years ago
-
Inside the Israel-Turkey geopolitical dance across Syria
THE EXPLAINER As Syria struggles in the wake of the Assad regime's collapse, its neighbors are carefully coordinating to avoid potential military confrontations
-
'Like a sound from hell': Serbia and sonic weapons
The Explainer Half a million people sign petition alleging Serbian police used an illegal 'sound cannon' to disrupt anti-government protests
-
The arrest of the Philippines' former president leaves the country's drug war in disarray
In the Spotlight Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the ICC earlier this month