China is ramping up propaganda to cover up human rights abuses against Uighurs

A protest against Chinese concentration camps in Turkey.
(Image credit: OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images)

China has spent years cracking down on the freedoms of its Uighur Muslim minority. And as the rest of the world starts to take notice, China has ramped up propaganda efforts to hide just what it's doing, a report published Thursday from the Uighur Human Rights Project reveals.

The United Nations estimates more than a million Uighurs have been held in concentration and re-education camps, while others face constant surveillance and imprisonment for anything deemed suspicious. Uighurs' forced labor has reportedly been used to produce masks that ended up in the U.S. and products for several American brands. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed a lot of this in its November 2019 "China Cables" report based on Chinese government leaks, which Beijing responded to with "outright denial," the ICIJ says.

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.