From camps to factories: Muslim detainees say China using forced labor

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Petitioners with relatives missing or detained in Xinjiang hold up photos of their loved ones during a press event at the office of the Ata Jurt rights group in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on January 21, 2019. (AFP)
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Gulzira Auelkhan, who spent close to two years trapped in China, speaks during an AFP interview at the office of the Ata Jurt rights group in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on January 21, 2019. (AFP)
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Gaukhar Kurmanaliyeva attends an AFP interview at the office of the informal Almaty office of the Atajurt volunteers organisation, which helps victims of China's crackdown in Xinjiang, in Almaty on April 17, 2019. (AFP)
Updated 07 May 2019
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From camps to factories: Muslim detainees say China using forced labor

  • More than a million people from Muslim minorities — mostly ethnic Uighurs, but also Kazakhs like Auelkhan, Kyrgyz and Hui — are being held in internment centers across Xinjiang

ALMATY, Kazakhstan: As Gulzira Auelkhan toiled stitching gloves in a factory in China’s troubled Xinjiang region, her managers made no secret of where her production would be sold.
“They told us openly that the gloves will be sold abroad, so we should do a good job,” Auelkhan recalled of a labor stint she says was enforced by Chinese “re-education” officials.
Auelkhan, a 39-year-old Chinese citizen of Kazakh descent, says she was part of a network of mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang who pass from what China calls “vocational training centers” to factories where they are forced to work for far less than the local minimum wage.
China says the education centers are part of its efforts to fight terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang — a region populated by mostly Muslim minority groups — and denies any use of forced labor.
But rights groups, and former workers like Auelkhan, say the practice used against Chinese minorities is widespread and at least one foreign company has dropped its Chinese supplier over the concerns.
Auelkhan says she was transferred to the glove factory at the Jiafang industrial estate in Xinjiang’s Yining county after spending 15 months in two different “re-education” facilities.
More than a million people from Muslim minorities — mostly ethnic Uighurs, but also Kazakhs like Auelkhan, Kyrgyz and Hui — are being held in internment centers across Xinjiang, according to a United Nations panel of experts.
Auelkhan has residency rights in Kazakhstan but had traveled to China to see family when she was detained and put into a re-education center.
She said life in the camps was brutal, with residents struck over the head with electrified batons for spending more than two minutes in the bathroom.

So even though they were not free to leave, it was an improvement when she and hundreds of other camp inmates were transferred to work at the factory, Auelkhan told AFP in Kazakhstan’s biggest city Almaty.
“Every day we were taken to and from a dormitory three kilometers from the factory,” she said, hugging the five-year-old daughter she didn’t see for nearly two years.
“When we were studying at the camp they told us we would be taught a trade and work for three months,” Auelkhan said.
Auelkhan said she was paid only 320 yuan ($48/42 euros) for close to two months’ work before her time at the factory was curtailed in December and she was allowed to return to her family in Kazakhstan.
Xinjiang’s average minimum wage ranges between 820 and 1,460 yuan per month, according to official statistics.
Beijing and officials in the region have fiercely denied any connection between the camps and under-paid labor.
A representative of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Government Press Office told AFP by email that there was “no labor contract between Education and Training Centers and enterprises” and “no enterprise obtains labor from training centers.”
But rights groups insist the connection exists and some companies have started taking notice.
In January, Badger Sportswear, a firm based in the US state of North Carolina, announced it would stop sourcing clothing from its Xinjiang supplier Hetian Taida over concerns it was using forced labor linked to the “re-education” campaign.
Auelkhan believes she was only released from forced labor because of a public campaign launched by her husband and supported by a Xinjiang-focused rights group in Almaty.

Originally, re-education officials had told her and other center residents that they would be “at (their) disposal” for at least six months, she said.
Oil-rich Kazakhstan’s government is a Beijing ally that positions itself as “the buckle” in China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road trade and investment agenda, a strategy for infrastructure and development projects throughout Asia, Europe and Africa.
Kazakh diplomats have entered into a dialogue with Beijing over Xinjiang, without publicly mentioning the re-education centers or criticizing China’s policies.
In December a representative of Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry said during a briefing that China had allowed more than 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs to travel to Kazakhstan as “a kind gesture.”
The ministry refused repeated requests from AFP to clarify the remarks, which lent hope to many in Kazakhstan that they would be able to bring Xinjiang-based relatives over the border to safety.
For most, however, this has been a crushing false dawn.
During a recent visit to the Almaty office of the Ata Jurt rights group dedicated to supporting relatives of the Xinjiang missing, AFP spoke to several Kazakhs who claim their relatives have merely swapped “re-education” for other forms of confinement.
One of them, Aibota Janibek, 34, said her sister Kunikei Janibek telephoned her from Xinjiang in January after months without contact to confirm she had been “assigned a job” by the state at a carpet factory in Shawan county.
Aibota Janibek has since lost touch with her sister, but heard from other relatives that she was transferred from the carpet factory to another position.
“A relative told me she is now at a factory that makes paper towels for airplanes,” Janibek said.


Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return

Updated 2 sec ago
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Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return

  • The Interior Ministry announced the flight on Friday, emphasizing that those deported had prior legal issues
  • This is the first deportation under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has pledged stricter migration policies since taking office in May
BERLIN: Germany deported dozens of Afghan nationals to their homeland on Friday, the second time it has done so since the Taliban returned to power and the first since a new government pledging a tougher line on migration took office in Berlin.
The Interior Ministry said a flight took off Friday morning carrying 81 Afghans, all of them men who had previously come to judicial authorities’ attention. It said in a statement that the deportation was carried out with the help of Qatar, and said the government aims to deport more people to Afghanistan in the future.
More than 10 months ago, Germany’s previous government deported Afghan nationals to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations of asylum-seekers.
New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February.
Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away. It also has suspended family reunions for many migrants.
The flight took off hours before German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt plans to meet his counterparts from five neighboring countries — France, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic — as well as the European Union’s commissioner responsible for migration, Magnus Brunner. Dobrindt is hosting the meeting to discuss migration on the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak, on the Austrian border.

Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict

Updated 22 min 27 sec ago
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Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict

  • Chinese pressure on Taiwan had only escalated over the past few years but that the island’s people were peace-loving

TAIPEI: Taiwan does not seek conflict with China and will not provoke confrontation and Beijing’s “aggressive” military posturing was counterproductive, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim said on Friday.

China considers democratic Taiwan as part of its own territory and calls President Lai Ching-te a “separatist.” Taiwan’s government disputes China’s claim.

Speaking to the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club in the capital Taipei, Hsiao said that Chinese pressure on Taiwan had only escalated over the past few years but that the island’s people were peace-loving.

“We do not seek conflict; we will not provoke confrontation,” she said, reiterating Lai’s offer of talks between Taipei and Beijing.

For decades, Taiwan’s people and business have contributed to China’s growth and prosperity, which has only been possible under a peaceful and stable environment, Hsiao added.

“Aggressive military posturing is counterproductive and deprives the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait of opportunities to pursue an agenda of growth and prosperity,” she said.

“Defending the status quo (with China) is our choice, not because it is easy, but because it is responsible and consistent with the interests of our entire region.”


North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort

Updated 46 min ago
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North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort

  • The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone appears to be lined with high-rise hotels and waterparks
  • State media previously said visits to Wonsan by Russian tour groups were expected in the coming months

SEOUL: North Korea has barred foreigners from a newly opened beach resort, the country’s tourism administration said this week, just days after Russia’s top diplomat visited the area.

The sprawling seaside resort on its east coast, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pet project, opened to domestic visitors earlier this month with great fanfare in state-run media.

Dubbed “North Korea’s Waikiki” by South Korean media, the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone appears to be lined with high-rise hotels and waterparks, and can purportedly accommodate some 20,000 people.

State media previously said visits to Wonsan by Russian tour groups were expected in the coming months.

But following Lavrov’s visit, the North’s National Tourism Administration said “foreign tourists are temporarily not being accepted” without giving further details, in a statement posted on an official website this week.

Kim showed a keen interest in developing North Korea’s tourism industry during his early years in power, analysts have said, and the coastal resort area was a particular focus.

He said ahead of the opening of the beach resort that the construction of the site would go down as “one of the greatest successes this year” and that the North would build more large-scale tourist zones “in the shortest time possible.”

The North last year permitted Russian tourists to return for the first time since the pandemic and Western tour operators briefly returned in February this year.

Seoul’s unification ministry, however, said that it expected international tourism to the new resort was “likely to remain small in scale” given the limited capacity of available flights.

Kim held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Wonsan last week where he offered Moscow his full and “unconditional” support for its war in Ukraine, KCNA reported.

Lavrov reportedly hailed the seaside project as a “good tourist attraction,” adding it would become popular among both local and Russian visitors looking for new destinations.

Ahead of Lavrov’s recent visit, Russia announced that it would begin twice-a-week flights between Moscow and Pyongyang.


Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors

Updated 18 July 2025
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Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors

  • The Southeast Asian country has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 coup
  • Embattled junta faces an array of pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic armed rebels

YANGON: Myanmar’s junta said Friday it is offering cash rewards to fighters willing to desert armed groups defying its rule and “return to the legal fold” ahead of a slated election.

The Southeast Asian country has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 coup, with the embattled junta facing an array of pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic armed rebels.

After suffering major battlefield reverses, the military has touted elections around the end of the year as a pathway to peace – plans denounced as a sham by opposition groups and international monitors.

State media The Global New Light of Myanmar said Friday “individuals who returned to the legal fold with arms and ammunition are being offered specific cash rewards.”

The junta mouthpiece did not specify how much cash it is offering, but said 14 anti-coup fighters had surrendered since it issued a statement pledging to “welcome” defectors two weeks ago.

“These individuals chose to abandon the path of armed struggle due to their desire to live peacefully within the framework of the law,” the newspaper said.

The surrendered fighters included 12 men and two women, it added.

Nine were members of ethnic armed groups, while five were from the pro-democracy “People’s Defense Forces” – formed after the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government four years ago.

The junta’s offer of a gilded olive branch matches a tactic used by its opponents – who have previously tried to tempt military deserters with cash rewards.

The “National Unity Government,” a self-proclaimed administration in exile dominated by ousted lawmakers, has called the junta’s call for cooperation “a strategy filled with deception aimed at legitimizing their power-consolidating sham election.”


Lightning strikes kill 33 people in eastern India

Updated 18 July 2025
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Lightning strikes kill 33 people in eastern India

  • The deaths in Bihar occurred during fierce storms between Wednesday and Thursday, a state disaster management department statement said
  • The state government announced compensation of 4 million rupees ($4,600) to the families of those killed by lightning

PATNA, India: Lightning strikes during monsoon storms in eastern India this week killed at least 33 people and injured dozens, officials said Friday.

The deaths in Bihar occurred during fierce storms between Wednesday and Thursday, a state disaster management department statement said, with the victims mostly farmers and laborers working in the open.

More heavy rain and lightning are forecast for parts of the state.

Bihar state’s disaster management minister, Vijay Kumar Mandal, said that officials in vulnerable districts had been directed to “create awareness to take precautionary steps following an alert on lightning.”

The state government announced compensation of 4 million rupees ($4,600) to the families of those killed by lightning.

At least 243 died by lightning in 2024 and 275 the year earlier, according to the state government.

India’s eastern region, including Bihar, is prone to annual floods that kill dozens and displace hundreds of thousands of people during peak monsoon season.