China has put 1 million Muslims in 'concentration camps', says US

WASHINGTON: The US accused China on Saturday of putting well more than a million minority Muslims in "concentration camps," in some of the strongest US condemnation to date of what it calls Beijing's mass detention of mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups.
The comments by Randall Schriver, who leads Asia policy at the US defence department, are likely to increase tension with Beijing, which is sensitive to international criticism and describes the sites as vocational education training centres aimed at stemming the threat of Islamic extremism.
Former detainees have described being tortured during interrogation at the camps, living in crowded cells and being subjected to a brutal daily regimen of party indoctrination that drove some people to suicide. Some of the facilities are ringed with razor wire and watch towers.
"The (Chinese) Communist Party is using the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps," Schriver told a Pentagon briefing during a discussion about China's military, estimating that the number of detained Muslims could be "closer to 3 million citizens".