Xinjiang Detention CenterDabancheng detention center.Shawn Zhang

Understanding the scope of China’s re-education camps is incredibly difficult, with some researchers relying on job ads and construction bids to piece together their activities.

Shawn Zhang, a law student in Canada, has been using satellite imagery to identify potential camps throughout Xinjiang. Zhang, whose family in China have been contacted by police over his social media posts that were critical of Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, has been using satellite imagery to track the sudden appearance of detention centers in Xinjiang — many of which are then used for re-education purposes or have re-education camps built nearby.

“Most Xinjiang cities are small. It is relatively easy to spot a detention center as it is very large, there are high thick concrete walls, watchtowers in the corners. And the recently built detention centers are likely located in the new suburbs rather than old city centers,” Zhang told Business Insider.

Large parking lots, school-like buildings, and wire fences are also common with re-education camps.

The largest building Zhang has found is in Dabancheng. After cross-referencing it with other reports, he estimates it holds 8,000 to 10,000 people. The latest available census figures from 2002 reported 40,000 people living in Dabancheng, a district of the Urumqi City, which indicates the center could hold 20% of this one area’s population.

Zhang’s imagery shows how detention center construction in Xinjiang is booming:

Lop county, Xinjiang

Ghulja city, Xinjiang

Kargilik county, Xinjiang

Karakax county, Xinjiang

But reeducation is not the only thing Uighurs have to fear in China.

Authorities have installed surveillance apps on residents’ phones and begun collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, and iris scans. They have also collected voice samples that may be used to identify who is speaking on tapped phone calls. There’s also 40,000 facial-recognition camerasthat are being used to track, and block, the movement of Uighurs.

https://www.businessinsider.de/photos-satellite-images-china-xinjiang-reeducation-detention-centers-2018-6?r=US&IR=T