Video of Blindfolded, Shackled Chinese Uighur Muslims Being Transferred to Re-Education Camps Goes Viral

By Salam Bustanji

Chilling footage of Chinese police transferring hundreds of blindfolded, shackled Chinese Uighur Muslim prisoners to re-education camps provokes public outcry.

The footage appears to show Uighur Muslim men at a train station being transferred, presumably to detention camps, by Chinese police. Human rights groups are accusing China’s ruling Communist Party of holding up to one million mainly Uighur people in “concentration camps” in the northwest Xinjiang region. 

The Chinese Communist Party has previously compared Islam to an “infectious disease,” saying in an official recording that “members of the public who have been chosen for re-education have been infected by an ideological illness.” 

A European security source that verified the video said: "We've examined the footage and believe it to be genuine. It shows up to 600 prisoners being moved; they're shackled together, have shaved heads, are blindfolded and have their hands locked behind their backs. This is typical of the way the Chinese move this type of prisoner." China vigorously denies the allegations. 

Beijing has in the past repeatedly denied all allegations of abuse against the Uighur community and other ethnic minority groups in China. China insists the alleged detention sites are "vocational" centres aimed at training and skills development. In a report earlier this year to counter criticism, the government said it had arrested nearly 13,000 people it described as "terrorists" and had broken up hundreds of "terrorist gangs" in Xinjiang. In the meantime, five human rights organisations have called on the United Nations Secretary to condemn the Chinese government's detention of more than a million Muslims in the Xinjiang region, calling for the immediate closure of government detention camps. Outrage and criticism of China's internment of the Uighurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups is continuously growing.

One twitter user brought attention to the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has allegedly deported Uighur and Hui Muslim students of Al-Azhar University by the order of Chinese authorities. The whereabouts of these students is unknown to this day.