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In a region of 21 million people, including 11 million Muslims, the number of those he reports to be detained would be a significant proportion of the population, especially of young adult men.

Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

Emerging accounts of the conditions in these camps make for chilling reading.

“China’s pacification drive in Xinjiang is, more than likely, the country’s most intense campaign of coercive social re-engineering since the end of the Cultural Revolution,” Zenz wrote, referring to the chaos unleashed by Mao Zedong in the 1960s.

“The state’s proclaimed ‘war on terror’ in the region is increasingly turning into a war on religion, ethnic languages and other expressions of ethnic identity.”

China's pacification drive in Xinjiang is, more than likely, the country's most intense campaign of coercive social re-engineering since the end of the Cultural Revolution

China has blamed violent attacks in Xinjiang in recent years on Islamic extremists bent on waging holy war on the state, with radical ideas said to be coming from abroad over the Internet and from visits to foreign countries by Uighurs, the region’s predominant ethnic group.

In response, Beijing has turned the entire region into a 21st-century surveillance state, with ubiquitous checkpoints and widespread use of facial recognition technology, and has even forced Muslims to install spyware on their phones that allows the authorities to monitor their activity online, experts say. Long beards and veils have been banned, and overt expression of religious sentiment is likely to cause immediate suspicion.

In an extension of the already pervasive program of human surveillance, more than 1 million Communist Party cadres have been dispatched to spend days on end staying in the homes of (mostly Muslim) families throughout Xinjiang, according to a report by Human Rights Watch released this week, where they carry out political indoctrination, and report back on anything from the extent of religious beliefs to uncleanliness and alcoholism.