A lengthy report said the government’s efforts have curbed religious extremism but gave little evidence of what crimes had occurred.
BEIJING — China has arrested nearly 13,000 people it describes as terrorists and has broken up hundreds of “terrorist gangs” in Xinjiang since 2014, the government said in a report Monday issued to counter criticism of internment camps and other oppressive security in the traditionally Islamic region.
The new report said “law-based de-radicalization” in Xinjiang has curbed the rise and spread of religious extremism. Experts and Uighur activists believe the camps are part of an aggressive government campaign to erode the identities of the Central Asian groups who called the region home long before waves of Han migrants arrived in recent decades.
The report shows the “vague and broad definition of ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ by the Chinese government,” said Patrick Poon, a China researcher for Amnesty International. China’s reputation for taking a hard line against religious minorities, and Muslims in particular, continues to draw global attention.
In November, China rejected criticism of its treatment of ethnic Muslims, telling the United Nations that accusations of rights abuses from some countries were “politically driven.”
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