China has long been known as a country whose governance borders on the tyrannical. Stories of corruption, police brutality and mass surveillance have made headlines recently. However, the Chinese government now stands accused of imprisoning a million Muslims in a state-sponsored brainwashing programme.

Furthermore, many of the newsworthy security measures - such as facial recognition cameras, collecting biometric data and intercepting text messages - have been deployed in this same province of Xinjiang. But most concerning are the “re-education” camps where Human Rights Watch have documented ill treatment and torture.

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With mounting pressure to explain what is happening, the government has launched a campaign that has dubbed the buildings “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. In a video, it is explained that they help Muslims - who are "destitute people" and "easily led astray" - into the "modern, civilized" world. However, a BBC investigation found them to be closer to prison camps than schools.

The inmates, supposedly there by choice, are conditioned into compliance having been stripped of headscarves or other religious items. They then receive education on language and culture - to help them integrate with the rest of the Chinese population. Around a million people have been arbitrarily detained in these mass internment camps, according to UN estimates.

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“There was a special room to punish those who didn't run fast enough,” former inmate Ablet Tursun Tohti told BBC. “There were two men there, one to beat with a belt, the other just to kick.” Tohti was at one of the dozens of facilities which have popped up over Xinjiang. On Google Earth, the data is often months out of date. But looking at the European Space Agency's Sentinel database, it’s clear that these sites are being constructed at a rate of knots.

“We sang the song called ‘Without the Communist Party There Can Be No New China,’” Tohti explains. His testimony, concerningly, matches up with that of others involved in the investigation. “And they taught us laws,” he adds. “If you couldn't recite them in the correct way, you'd be beaten.”

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Those in the surrounding towns and villages know of the facilities - and of the language which they need to use to speak about them. “It's a re-education school,” a local hotelier explained. “Yes, that's a re-education school,” a shopkeeper agreed. “There are tens of thousands of people there now. They have some problems with their thoughts.”

The programme targets Uighurs who speak a Turkic language and more closely resemble people from Central Asia rather than China's majority population - the Han Chinese. They make up around one half of the population in Xinjiang. However, 90 per cent of the Han Chinese live in the north of the province. In the south, the city of Kashgar is both physically and culturally closer to Baghdad than Beijing.

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However, this resource-rich region has seen huge Han Chinese migration and the persecuted Uighurs have, in many ways, not been in control of their fate. Tension has steadily risen and, as the Uighurs have seen this influx of unyielding and often openly racist arrivals, so too have there been a number of attacks.

In October 2013, for example, an attack in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square left two people dead. Thought to have been carried out by Uighurs, this felt like a symbolic stab at the heart of the Han Chinese’s homeland. The following year, an attack in Kunming, killed 31 people.

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Rather than consider culturally sensitive policies to help Uighurs integrate, the Chinese government banned headscarves and “abnormal” beards in both Beijing and across Xinjiang. However, in Xinjiang, religious names are now banned too.

Across the country, Uighur government officials are prohibited from practising Islam including attending mosques and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. The marginalisation of Muslims has created a separatist society and, visibly and audibly different, Uighurs make for an easy target.

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It’s thought that hundreds have gone to fight in various militias in Syria and the government is concerned about disloyalty among Uighurs. This is an issue, one must presume, which they hope to beat out of the culprits.

Open hostility towards Muslims has caused a sharp decline in those publically practising their faith. In many towns and cities, Mosques are largely empty. They are there more as a reminder of another culture rather than the centre of a community.

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Those who have moved out of Xinjiang have unusual insight into sudden disappearances. However, as to their relatives' whereabouts or whether they are coming back, there are no answers. “In the middle of the night, after my other children have gone to bed, I cry a lot,” says Bilkiz Hibibullah, whose husband and child disappeared from Xinjiang province. “There is nothing more miserable than not knowing where your daughter is, if she is alive or dead,” Hibibullah, who now lives in Turkey, explains. “If she could hear me now, I'd say nothing but sorry.”

In 2002, Reyila Abulaiti left Xinjiang in order to study in the UK. Her mother, Xiamuxinuer Pida, flew over to see her in London earlier this year, before returning on June 2. Reyila didn’t hear from her mother so called to check she had got back OK. “She told me that the police were searching the house,” Reyila explains.

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They wanted proof of Reyila’s UK address, her university course, a copy of her passport and a number of other documents. “Don't call me again,” her mother then said. “Don't call me ever.” Reyila believes that her mother has been held in one of the internment camps ever since. “My mum has been detained for no reason,” she says. “As far as I know, the Chinese government wants to delete Uighur identity from the world.”

By population, China is the largest country in the world. The government has attempted to keep the country united with a strong sense of nationalism. However, as the tentacles of communist control have spread from Bejing and taken resources from the south, so too have the Uighurs felt increasingly victimised. Ultimately, extremist attacks like those in Beijing and Kunming are as much an effect of hostile race relations as they are a cause.

The Xinjiang region of China is 6,000 kilometres from London, 10,000 kilometres from New York and a million miles from most westerners’ thoughts. But here, in a developed country, men, women and children are being persecuted, imprisoned or killed for their religious beliefs.

Local Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims) are being rounded up and sent to sprawling detention facilities (or “re-education” camps) by Han Chinese migrants who have moved to the resource-rich region and commenced the systematic oppression of the indigenous people.

In fact, less than one month ago, the London-based China Tribunal found that the Chinese government is harvesting organs from prisoners. Many of these prisoners have done nothing more than follow Islam or Falun Gong (a peaceful religion characterised by kindness and meditation which is nonetheless considered a threat to the communist regime).

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“Very many people have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC stated in relation to the unanimous decision of the China Tribunal. “More may suffer in similar ways and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, for the time being, running a country with one of the oldest civilisations known to modern man.”

It is now being reported that tourists entering Xinjiang are being told to download an application onto their phones, which further investigations have uncovered is malware designed to search for and extract information. The software looks for a specific set of files, according to numerous experts.

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"[The app] provides yet another source of evidence showing how pervasive mass surveillance is being carried out in Xinjiang. We already know that Xinjiang residents - particularly Turkic Muslims - are subjected to round-the-clock and multidimensional surveillance in the region," Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said. "What you’ve found goes beyond that: it suggests that even foreigners are subjected to such mass, and unlawful surveillance."

Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim race who have lived in the region for centuries. However, the incoming Han Chinese (China’s and indeed the world’s largest ethnic group) control Xinjiang. Now, the government is monitoring Uyghurs who are also acutely aware of “disappearances” from the community.

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“This is yet another example of why the surveillance regime in Xinjiang is one of the most unlawful, pervasive, and draconian in the world," stated Edin Omanovic, Privacy International’s state surveillance programme lead. "Modern extraction systems take advantage of this to build a detailed but flawed picture into people’s lives.”

“Modern apps, platforms, and devices generate huge amounts of data which people likely aren’t even aware of or believe they’ve deleted, but which can still be found on the device” he adds. “This is highly alarming in a country where downloading the wrong app or news article could land you in a detention camp.”

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The software, called BXAQ or Fengcai, is installed on Android phones and looks for things such as ISIS’s publication Rumiyah, parts of the Quran, content relating to the Dalai Lama and music by Japanese rock band Unholy Grave, who offended the Chinese government with a song entitled Taiwan: Another China.

In a joint journalistic investigation, the Guardian, the New York Times and Vice employed researchers at Citizen Lab from the University of Toronto, researchers from the Ruhr University Bochum and penetration testing firm Cure53, on behalf of the Open Technology Fund.

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"The Chinese government, both in law and practice, often conflates peaceful religious activities with terrorism,” Maya Wang, of Human Rights Watch, added. "Chinese law defines terrorism and extremism in a very broad and vague manner. For example, terrorism charges can stem from mere possession of 'items that advocate terrorism,' even though there is no clear definition of what these materials may be."

As well as extreme surveillance, Uyghurs are also being abducted from their homes and sent to “vocational schools” which use education - on topics such as Chinese culture and values - to combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. These largescale complexes are being built at a rate of knots and, with multiple watchtowers per perimeter, look far more like prisons than schools.

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“There was a special room to punish those who didn't run fast enough,” former inmate Ablet Tursun Tohti told BBC. “There were two men there, one to beat with a belt, the other just to kick.” In an official video, it is claimed that Muslims are destitute people who are easily led astray but that these camps help assimilate them into the "modern, civilised" world. “We sang the song called 'Without the Communist Party There Can Be No New China',” Tohti explains. “And they taught us laws,” he adds. “If you couldn't recite them in the correct way, you'd be beaten.”

Meanwhile, the China Tribunal has uncovered a worst-case scenario in regards to organ harvesting - a practise the Chinese government claimed it had ceased in 2014. “On the day we were transferred to the labour camp, we were taken to a medical facility where we underwent physical check-ups,” Falun Gong activist Jennifer Zeng, who spent a year in a female labour camp, told the Guardian. “We were interrogated about what diseases we had and I told them I had hepatitis.”

“The second time, after about a month in the camp, everyone was handcuffed and put in a van and taken to a huge hospital,” Zeng continues. “That was for a more thorough physical check-up. We were given X-rays. On the third occasion in the camp, they were drawing blood from us. We were all told to line up in the corridor and the tests were given.”

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“Inmates of the labour camp were not allowed to exchange contact details, so there was no way to trace each other after we were released,” Zeng said during the tribunal. “When anyone disappeared from the camp, I would assume that she was released and had gone home.”

“But in reality that cannot be confirmed,” she adds, “as I had no way to trace others after my release and I now fear they might have been taken to a hospital and had their organs removed without consent and thus killed in the process.”

That tourists’ phones are being scanned by border control officials is a pinprick of inconvenience compared to the persecution suffered by Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The tip of the iceberg, it gives some idea of the extent to which the lives of Chinese Muslims are being ruined through racism. Another blight on China’s pockmarked human rights record, their standing on the international stage looks increasingly shaky. But world powers will need to apply more pressure before the situation changes.

Kashgar, in China, is closer to Baghdad than Beijing. It is located in Xinjiang - an autonomous region of the country where almost half of the inhabitants are Uighurs. Muslims who speak a Turkic language, Uighurs have recently been subjugated by an oppressive government and incoming migrants from eastern China.

In fact, as many as one million Muslims have been detained in forced labour camps, according to the estimates of German-based academic, Adrian Zenz. The UN’s estimates puts the overall number of detainees in these camps at one million. One of these people is Abdurehim Heyit, a Uighur musician previously thought to have died while detained.

Due to Uighurs’ close cultural links to Turkey, the country was expected to speak out far sooner than it did. However, fearing sanctions and political tension, Turkey stayed remarkably quiet about the situation until the rumours appeared about Heyit’s death.

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Speaking directly about the rumours, foreign ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy stated that they "further strengthened the Turkish public's reaction to the serious human rights violations in Xinjiang". He added: "The reintroduction of concentration camps in the 21st Century and the systematic assimilation policy of Chinese authorities against the Uighur Turks is a great embarrassment for humanity."

However, a video dated 10 February and released via Chinese state media appears to refute any claims of Heyit’s death. In the eerie video, Heyit explains that he is in good health but is being investigated by the Chinese government. Providing few further details, China then demanded that Turkey retract its accusatory statement.

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The singer’s initial disappearance was big news in China. He was a popular musician and master of the Dutar, a two-stringed instrument which is incredibly hard to play. Having studied in Beijing, he performed with national arts troupes.

It’s suspected that Heyit’s act of defiance took the form of a lyric in his song Fathers. At one point, he uses the phrase "martyrs of war". This may have been enough for the Chinese government to suspect him of extremism.

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This, the government claims, is the purpose of the scheme. China says that the vast complexes which house thousands of people and are surrounded by walls, fences and watchtowers are actually “re-education” camps tackling extremism.

"We hope the relevant Turkish persons can distinguish between right and wrong and correct their mistakes," foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters. China referred to the Turkish statement’s assertions as "false accusations" calling them “completely unacceptable”.

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However, the clip appears to follow the style of a forced confession video - which are far from uncommon in China. Yet not everyone believes the video is even real. Nury Turkel, chairman of the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told the BBC that he believes some aspects of the video are “suspicious”, adding that the Chinese government could manipulate the video due to the "technological advantages it has".

"The Chinese government responds to Turkey because of the influence it has in the Muslim world," Turkel added. “The ball is in the Chinese government's court. They detained Heyit. They detained 10% of the Uighur population. They are trying to tell the world there is no abuse and these are just so-called vocational training centres. It's their responsibility to prove the video is authentic." Like many people, he too believes that Turkey was late to respond to the incident.

“There was a special room to punish those who didn't run fast enough,” former internment camp inmate Ablet Tursun Tohti told the BBC for a report published last year. “There were two men there, one to beat with a belt, the other just to kick.”

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The report found that there were many rumours about the new structures popping up over the region. “There are tens of thousands of people ... They have some problems with their thoughts,” a Xinjiang resident explained over the phone.

“We sang the song called ‘Without the Communist Party There Can Be No New China’,” Tohti explains. Most reports from ex-prisoners talk of nationalistic songs, language lessons and physical abuse. Inmates are required to "sing hymns praising the Chinese Communist Party and write 'self-criticism' essays" according to a New York Times report. “And they taught us laws,” Tohti adds. “If you couldn't recite them in the correct way, you'd be beaten.”

The news that China may be housing up to one million Muslims in internment camps surfaced in the mainstream media in October of 2018. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Chinese people are thought to be living in laogai (forced labour camps) which often produce products for foreign export.

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This is why Oregon mother Julie Keith found an SOS message in a Kmart Halloween decoration. "Sir," the note starts, before continuing in broken English. "If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly send this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever."

Having heard the details of the abuse and torture in Shenyang’s Masanjia labour camp, Keith invested time in publicising the story until it was eventually picked up by the media. However, it was only when the letter’s author Sun Yi was released that she received thanks from the man himself.

Their meeting in Jakarta made for a tearful international news story in itself. Entirely unaware of the concept of Halloween, Sun Yi told of how he had once glimpsed someone carrying pretend bones at the labour camp and thought them to be the remains of his missing peers. Soon after meeting Julie Keith, Sun Yi died of kidney failure, having potentially been visited by a Chinese agent.

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Perhaps what makes the story of Sun Yi all the sadder is that his crime was being a follower of Falun Gong - a peaceful, yoga-like activity with an associated lifestyle and belief system. The Chinese government, however, saw Falun Gong as a threat. They outlawed the movement and now detain anyone found to be contravening the ban.

Those in Xinjiang’s internment camps are there under similarly strange pretences. “I have deeply understood my own mistakes,” a man tells the camera in the official state-sponsored video about the scheme. China may well be advanced economically and technologically, but sadly it is lagging far, far behind when it comes to human rights.

In China, it may take only a couple of weeks to get an organ transplant. Compared to the months or years of anguish often associated with the process, this seems like a joyously short waiting list. However, the reason organs are so easy to come by in China is dark, dystopian and truly unsettling.

An independent, London-based tribunal has found that the Chinese government is killing detainees and harvesting their organs. Furthermore, the victims are entirely innocent in some - if not most - cases. Speaking of the unanimous decision, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC explained: “The conclusion shows that very many people have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason, that more may suffer in similar ways and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, for the time being, running a country with one of the oldest civilisations known to modern man.”

Sir Nice, who was also a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, stated that they were certain of “Falun Gong as a source - probably the principal source - of organs for forced organ harvesting”. Falun Gong is a comparatively new religion which the Chinese government decided, in 1999, was a threat to communism due to the numbers it had attracted. Centred on compassion, meditation and truthfulness, it is a peaceful movement but its followers continue to be persecuted.

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China has publically acknowledged that it has harvested organs from executed prisoners. However, as a country where the government regularly stands accused of tyranny, it wasn’t long before the motivations behind the executions were linked to the organ harvesting. However, in 2014 China announced that the process would stop.

But the tribunal, which brought together human rights investigators, medical specialists and other experts, found that the complete opposite is true. “There is no evidence of the practice having been stopped and the tribunal is satisfied that it is continuing,” stated Sir Nice. Other claims suggest that detainees' organs are harvested while they are still alive, though they may well die during the process.

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Named the China Tribunal, the British-based collective of experts has uncovered some concerning truths. The investigation was created by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (Etac) and received testimony from both former Falun Gong and Uighur Muslim inmates who gave accounts of being medically tested on in Chinese jails.

“On the day we were transferred to the labour camp, we were taken to a medical facility where we underwent physical check-ups,” Falun Gong activist Jennifer Zeng, who spent a year in a female labour camp, told the Guardian. “We were interrogated about what diseases we had and I told them I had hepatitis.”

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“The second time, after about a month in the camp, everyone was handcuffed and put in a van and taken to a huge hospital,” Zeng continues. “That was for a more thorough physical check-up. We were given X-rays. On the third occasion in the camp, they were drawing blood from us. We were all told to line up in the corridor and the tests were given.”

Responding to the paper, the Chinese embassy said earlier this year: “The Chinese government always follows the World Health Organization’s guiding principles on human organ transplant, and has strengthened its management on organ transplant in recent years. On 21 March 2007, the Chinese state council enacted the regulation on human organ transplant, providing that human organ donation must be done voluntarily and gratis. We hope that the British people will not be misled by rumours.”

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However, their claims conflict with the information collected. “Inmates of the labour camp were not allowed to exchange contact details, so there was no way to trace each other after we were released,” Zeng said during the tribunal. “When anyone disappeared from the camp, I would assume that she was released and had gone home.”

“But in reality that cannot be confirmed,” she adds, “as I had no way to trace others after my release and I now fear they might have been taken to a hospital and had their organs removed without consent and thus killed in the process.”

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The plight of followers of Falun Gong was highlighted in a news story last year. American mother Julie Keith found an SOS message hidden inside a Halloween decoration which explained that the author was incarcerated in one of China’s forced labour camps. His only crime, however, was his religion.

Having worked to publicise the note, it eventually made international headlines and, years later, Julie finally met the man who had written it. Having highlighted this terrible injustice and having been released, he was now a symbol of the resistance and fled to Jakarta. However, it is thought that he was visited by a Chinese agent and died not long after.

This is just one story of many which, together, betray a long history of violence, aggression and injustice levelled at this relatively young religion. It is hoped that the China Tribunal will force the Chinese government to stop harvesting the organs of prisoners - and to stop the persecution of social minorities.

The leader of the secretive state has managed to dominate international headlines for consecutive months now. As North Korea's relationships with the outside world continue to disintegrate, some of the West's biggest powerhouses are experiencing great pressure to rein in the threat that Kim Jong-un appears so intent on leveling. However, it's clear that the greatest threat that Kim Jong-un poses is not to us, but to his loyal subjects, who are indoctrinated since birth to be loyal to the personality cult of the Kim dynasty. Not only does the North Korean schooling system aim to produce citizens that are faithful to the teachings of "Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and Commander Kim Jong-il", but they are taught since kindergarten to hate the state's enemies, namely, American imperialists, Japanese militarists and, of course, South Korea (the so called "gang of traitors"). But according to intelligence briefings given to South Korean lawmakers on Monday, Kim Jong-un is intent on finding new ways to subjugate the population. Certainly, he has reportedly banned gatherings that involve singing and drinking in a bid to increase control over his subjects. North Korea's despotic leader has purportedly banned gatherings which involve drinking and singing to gain control over his subjects, and also to limit the impact of crushing economic sanctions imposed on the country. The sanctions were imposed by Western powers in response to North Korea's ongoing commitment to developing nuclear devices and ballistic missiles. Speaking on the subject, the South Korean National Intelligence Service asserted: "[Pyongyang] has banned any gatherings related to drinking, singing and other entertainment and is strengthening control of outside information." The South Korean Intelligence Service also reported that two top-ranking officials were punished after Kim Jong-un ordered an inspection of the military's General Political Bureau, whose aim is to ensure that soldiers are adhering to the party line. The bureau's chief, Hwang Pyong So, and his deputy, Kim Won Hong, were allegedly the reprimanded officers. While the scope of the punishment remains unclear, experts believe that it could be indicative of an emerging power struggle between the North Korean leader's inner circle. The South Korean Intelligence Service also said that they are monitoring closely for new missile launches in North Korea. They stated:

"The agency is closely following the developments because there is a possibility that North Korea could fire an array of ballistic missiles this year under the name of a satellite launch and peaceful development of space."

This is just the latest move made by the leader of the hermit state to limit the already controlled conditions that the population lives under. Largely believed to be one of the most repressive, authoritarian states in the world; King Jong Un maintains dominance by curtailing travel abroad and by enforcing public executions, forced labour and arbitrary detention.

While such limitations may appear absurd and farcical to us citizens of the Western world, it's clear that this is very much a reality for the people of North Korea. And as such, their strife should remain at the forefront when discussing matters related to Kim Jong Un's regime.

In related news, Donald Trump has been "sentenced to death" by North Korea...