In a country where as many as 2 million Uighurs and other Muslims are imprisoned in concentration camps, tortured and forced by Chinese officials to renounce their faith, one man’s reported crimes of religious persecution may stand above all others — Chen Quanguo.
Chen is the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, the region in northwestern China where human rights atrocities are taking place.
Using surveillance technology and DNA-based identification of Uighurs, Chen has helped create an open-air prison for the remaining million Uighurs and other Muslims, who live in fear of being forcibly separated from their families and sentenced indefinitely.
Chen’s reported record of brutality includes a repressive campaign against Buddhists in Tibet, the blueprint for his current oppression of the Uighurs. As reports emerge that the Chinese government is exporting this model of surveillance to other parts of China, and even to other countries, it is hard to imagine what the Chinese model of