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China has implemented a new strategy to constrain the Uyghur population in the Xinjiang region by shifting from "re-education camps" to prison.
Mihray Abdilim and Alim Seytoff, writing in Radio Free Asia (RFA) said that the rise in 'counter-terrorism,' 'stability maintenance' cases indicate repressive judicial tactics. As per two reports released by officials in Xinjiang one by the region's highest court, the other by a group of prosecutors, published on March 3 represent a shift in strategy to prosecute Uyghurs and other members of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. Public prosecutors, who collectively are known as the Procuratorate, detained nearly convicted more than 44,600 people in 28,490 cases involving about 12,900 different crimes, according to a work report read by Li Yongjun, who is the head of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) People's Procuratorate. In a readout of the 2021 work report, Chief Justice Bahargul Semet said that the region's courts handled 668,900 cases. Of those, 606,200 were closed to public review. The top-level Supreme Court, meanwhile, took up 5,820 cases -- 5,271 of which were closed, said Mihray and Alim. German researcher Adrian Zenz, who has documented China's abuses against the Uyghurs, said the number of cases and investigations in Xinjiang courts has nearly doubled since 2018. That, and the fact that Uyghur-language translations are also increasing during trials, shows that "Beijing's oppression in the region is shifting from mainly re-education to sentencing large numbers of Uyghurs to prison terms," Zenz said. "Uyghurs are not released from the camps, but instead shifted into prisons," he said. Teng Biao, an academic lawyer and visiting professor at the University of Chicago, who is an expert on China's judicial and legal systems, told RFA that those courts have become a tool of repression in Xinjiang. In her readout, justice Bahargul said that courts operated by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization, handled 80,800 cases, 71,000 of which are now closed, reported RFA. China is believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centres and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in the region. (ANI)
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