Xinjiang Police Files

According to estimates by U.N. and U.S. officials, one million Uyghurs and other Turkic groups were held in Chinese government camps in 2018. The existence of China's "re-education" and an extrajudicial program for mass detention were first detected in satellite photos, and testimonies from Uyghur refugees. A previous investigation into Xinjiang by a large group of media organisations occurred in 2019, and was released under the name China Cables. This leak, based on classified Chinese government documents, exposed the operations manual for Xinjiang detention camps and the region's system of mass surveillance. The data was evaluated over several weeks by joint research by the media consortium and partially checked for authenticity. The leak coincided with the first visit by a U.N. human rights diplomat since 2005. According to Zenz, the timing was not intentional. ==Contents==

The Xinjiang Police Files contain thousands of pictures and documents from the Xinjiang counties of Konasheher and Tekes, which served to fight poverty and were directed against extremist ideas. Zenz wrote a journal article based on the contents of the files, titled The Xinjiang Police Files: Re-Education Camp Security and Political Paranoia in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region published in the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies on May 24. Documents The documents in the leak include confidential government documents, as well as speeches by top Chinese officials, and internal police documents and tutorials. This was issued by Chen Quanguo, in his role as Xinjiang's party secretary and member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party at the time in 2018. Chen also called for officials to "exercise firm control over religious believers". Another document, labeled among the "most striking" by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), are spreadsheets containing information on 8,000 detainees in Konasheher. Images Among the pictures included in the leak are mugshots of over 2,800 people, with some of the pictures showing "dazed men, women and teenagers staring blankly into camera". ==Reactions==

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the leak is "irrefutable evidence of the highly militarized nature of the camps and present a stark contrast with those, previously published, that were taken on government-organized press tours", as well as stating that "taken together, the photographs and documents refute the Chinese government's claims that the camps are merely 'educational centers'". She also stated that the leaked files contained "shocking details of China's human rights violations" Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted: "Horrified by the Xinjiang Police Files, which spotlight China's mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities." ==See also==