The Xinjiang government on Tuesday revised a local law to encourage "vocational skill education training centers" to "carry out anti-extremist ideological education."
Human rights organizations have long alleged the Chinese government has been detaining hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs -- a Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim minority native to Xinjiang -- in such centers, as part of an effort to enforce patriotism and loyalty to Beijing in the region.
In a report on August 29, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed alarm at numerous reports of Uyghurs and other Muslims being held for long periods of time, without charge or trial, "under the pretext of countering terrorism and religious extremism."
US Vice President Mike Pence made a similar accusation in a speech at the Hudson Institute last Thursday.
"Survivors of the camps have described their experiences as a deliberate attempt by Beijing to strangle Uyghur culture and stamp out the Muslim faith," he said.
The Chinese government has forcefully maintained the reports aren't true and there is "no arbitrary detention or lack of freedom of religion or belief."
"Xinjiang citizens including the Uyghurs enjoy equal freedoms and rights," Hu Lianhe, a spokesman for China's United Front Work Department, told the UN panel.
In the revised Xinjiang law, Article 33 stipulates that "institutions such as vocational skill education training centers should carry out trainings on the common national language, laws and regulations, and vocational skills, and carry out anti-extremist ideological education, and psychological and behavioral correction to promote thought transformation of trainees, and help them return to the society and family."
The updated law all but acknowledges the growing reports of mass detentions inside Xinjiang, where former detainees claim they were forced to yell patriotic slogans, sing revolutionary songs and study Chinese President Xi Jinping's teachings.
In the past year, Beijing has radically attempted to tighten its hold over the remote region following a spate of violent attacks which the Chinese government blamed on Uyghur Muslim separatists trying to establish an independent state.
In a submission to the United Nations, the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) estimated at least one million Uyghurs were being held in political indoctrination camps as of July 2018.
"Detentions are extra-legal, with no legal representation allowed throughout the process of arrest and incarceration," the submission said.
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