China’s government “detained at least 800,000 and up to possibly more than 2 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other Muslim groups” in camps and “subjected them to forced disappearance, torture, physical abuse, and prolonged detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity since April 2017,” the State Department’s 2018 International Religious Freedom Report said.
The report, which included a separate section on the XUAR this year due to “the scope and severity of reported religious freedom violations specific to the region,” said that authorities in the region “maintained extensive and invasive security and surveillance, in part to gain information regarding individuals’ religious adherence and practices.”
The government cited concerns over the three evils of “ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism” as grounds to restrict religious practices of Muslims in the XUAR, and intensified detentions amid the implementation of a regional counterextremism regulation enacted in March 2017 and the National Counterterrorism Law, which addressed “religious extremism,” the report said.
