1 Million Held in Xinjiang Indoctrination Camps

More evidence of how Uighurs and Muslims are mistreated by China

For about a year, there have been dozens of news reports about Uighurs being "disappeared" into detention camps. Some told of how they were forcibly indoctrinated to sing patriotic songs about China, learn about Chinese law, brush up on their Mandarin, and denounce Islam, and Muslim culture.

And then last month a Kazakh-Chinese woman testified in a court in Kazakhstan about illegally entering the country. Sayragul Sauytbay, 41, testified she escaped a "reeducation camp", one of many that are holding thousands of ethnic Kazakhs for "political indoctrination".

Interestingly she was not a camp detainee. Before she fled to Kazakhstan, Sauytbay had been the head administrator of a kindergarten -- a position that, together with her membership in the Communist Party, technically made her a Chinese state official.

Sayragul Sautybay testifying to avoid deportation to China

She said Chinese authorities forced her to train "political ideology" instructors for reeducation camps in Xinjiang. As a result she had access to secret documents about China's plan to "reeducate" Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgz and Hui who are Muslims.

A few days ago the court ruled she would not be deported to China and Sauytubay is applying for asylum in Kazakhstan.

And now a UN human rights committee has heard there are credible reports that China is holding 1 million Uighurs in "counter-extremism centres".

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said she was concerned by reports that Beijing had "turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembled a massive internment camp".

China claims it needs to keep the country safe from extremists

Beijing has previously denied the existence of these camps.

If there really are 1 million people being held in these camps, that's a number that's way beyond what others have reported.

While the UN may bring up these claims and ask Beijing to respond, it will probably deny them as much as possible, or the very least claim they are necessary to contain these people from the rest of the population for security reasons and cite terrorism.

Another issue related to Muslims in China is in Ningxia Hui autonomous region, where hundreds of them are protesting to prevent a newly-built mosque from being demolished.

Hundreds held a tense stand off at Weizhou Grand Mosque

Officials said the Weizhou Grand Mosque had not been given proper building permits, but so far the protestors have been able to prevent the authorities from trying to modify it to put Chinese-style pagodas.

This tense standoff is still continuing, and one hopes it doesn't end in violence.

The irony is that China likes to pride itself with having 55 ethnic minorities and yet it doesn't respect their freedom to worship their religion or practice their traditions.

In Too Deep

China's biggest movie flop to date, and 750 million yuan down the drain

Wow what a waste of money.

The most expensive film made in China at 750 million yuan (US112 million) was yanked from screens after it flopped spectacularly on opening weekend, making only 49.05 million yuan.

Called Asura, the fantasy film was backed by big names like Alibaba Group Holding, Zhenjian Film Studio, and Ningxia Film Group, and starred Hong Kong actors Carina Lau Kar-ling and Tony Leung Ka-fai, as well as 19-year-old teenage heartthrob Wu Lei.

Tony Leung Ka-fai (second left) and Carina Lau (third to left)

But the producers made the shock announcement on the film's Weibo account, saying they gave their "deepest apologies to viewers who did not get a chance to watch the film, as well as to all the Chinese and international participants who were involved in its production over the past six years".

Oh boy.

There were some 2,500 people involved in the making of the film, that was shot in Qinghai, Ningxia and Hebei provinces, while 15 months of post production was done in the United States.

Thank goodness the trade war wasn't happening then...

Asura was based on Buddhist mythology, but it seems the story line wasn't compelling enough to viewers, as it only got 3.1 out of 10 from 10,950 viewers on the Chinese film review website Douban, and 6.4 on ticketing provider Maoyan's website.

The film was in post production in the US for 15 months

Meanwhile, Asura's competition, Hidden Man, directed by actor and director Jiang Wen, that also opened on July 13, raked in 341 million yuan.

Another case of China's bid to throw gobs of money at something with the expectations it will succeed, but in fact the opposite is what happens. Apparently Asura was the first of a trilogy... guess the other two are canned now?