Leaked documents detail Uighur persecution

Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered officials in the Xinjiang region of China to show “absolutely no mercy” in cracking down on Muslims, a new report revealed. The New York Times published hundreds of leaked documents contradicting China’s repeated denials that it imprisoned about 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities in reeducation camps in the region.

What do the documents include? One of the directives includes a script for officials talking to people whose family members were sent to the camps. Officials were instructed to assure them their relatives were not criminals but were held for their “unhealthy thoughts,” noting, “It’s very hard to totally eradicate viruses in thinking in just a short time.” In a private session with officials in the region in 2014, Xi warned of underestimating the psychological effects of religious extremism and said addressing it would require “a period of painful, interventionary treatment.” A member of the Chinese Communist Party leaked the documents, hinting at a growing divide over the crackdown in Xinjiang.

Dig deeper: Read the New York Times report on the leaked files.