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China's crackdown on Uyghurs enters new stage

Demonstrators take part in a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Berlin on Dec. 27, 2019, to call attention to Chinas mistreatment of members of the Uyghur community in western China. (John Macdougall MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images)
Demonstrators take part in a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Berlin on Dec. 27, 2019, to call attention to Chinas mistreatment of members of the Uyghur community in western China. (John Macdougall MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images)

Since 2014, Beijing has singled Uyghurs out for re-education and imprisonment, and created an intrusive surveillance state in Xinjiang, in China’s far west. The Chinese government justifies this crackdown as a necessary way to strike first against terrorists.

Washington Post correspondent Eva Dou has reported from Xinjiang. She says that as the crackdown has entered a new stage — an official forgetting, with Beijing erasing evidence of its actions.

Here & Now‘s Scott Tong talks with The Washington Post’s Eva Dou about what’s going on in Xinjiang and the legacy of this crackdown, which the United Nations says may be a crime against humanity.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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