New Transformation Through Education Camps

sign at the entrance of transformation through education camp — The sign at the entrance of this transformation through education camp reads “Hami City Petition System Education and Training Center”

The Chinese government expands the network of “transformation through education camps” in Xinjiang. Bitter Winter has obtained videos and photos showing the outside of these facilities.

Bitter Winter reported in July that the Chinese Communist Party had repurposed the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Xigebi, Kumul city in Xinjiang for a “transformation through education camp.” According to our sources, due to the increasing number of detained Muslims, the Center has become overcrowded, and the authorities had transferred some of the detainees to new locations.

A sign outside one of them reads “Hami City Petition System Education and Training Center.” Security there is extremely tight, with guards on duty at the entrance. A source said, “During the first half of 2017, Uyghur men were detained here. From the second half of 2017, the detainees are all Uyghur women. I can hear them singing songs that praise the Communist Party every day.”

A well-informed source who wished to remain anonymous in Hami city reported that the Thirteenth Division Detention Center on Beijiao Road in the Yizhou district is also used as a “transformation through education camp.” The center is currently undergoing an expansion; the facility, still under construction, has some empty buildings, and windows are yet to be installed.

According to insiders, there is a smaller facility used as a “transformation through education camp” in the Yizhou district, known as the Vocational Education and Training Center; all the detainees there are Uyghurs. The video clearly shows an armed officer guarding the facility’s entrance.