Over 2,000 Uyghur men are detained in a “transformation through education” camp in Lop county of Xinjiang’s Hotan prefecture.
Bitter Winter has accessed new information that No. 4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center in Lop county has been repurposed for a “transformation through education” camp for Uyghurs. More than 2,000 men, 20- to 76-years-old, are held there. Some of them are detained for growing long beards or having had contacts with foreign countries, while others were sent to the camp after having served sentences in prison.
Each day, the detainees spend eight hours studying Mandarin and Chinese laws, four hours for each topic. After dinner, two hours or more are spent on watching propaganda films extolling the Communist Party or learning to write Chinese characters.
According to an inside source, the camp employs 150 staff, 15 detainees for each employee. Every day, the staff score the performance of each detainee based on their general attitude and achievements in studying. If a “student” performs poorly, disobeys orders, or exhibits negative emotions, he is punished by being sent to solitary confinement for 24 hours with his hands cuffed to iron grills on windows, the tips of feet barely touching the floor.
The detained have no freedom whatsoever; their every move is monitored by surveillance cameras. The use of washrooms is limited to three minutes and is accompanied by an auxiliary officer or a member of the staff. The men held in the camp are only allowed to go outside within the enclosed area twice or thrice per week, with a maximum duration of 15 minutes each time.
Bitter Winter reported on September 29 that the Lop county authorities had opened special facilities for the children of families with both parents kept in “transformation through education” camps.
Reported by Li Zaili
