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Who bears responsibility when social media platforms are used to incite genocide? Although courts and scholarship have recognized the role of mass media in past mass atrocities, social media poses a unique challenge. Its transnational nature, with companies and infrastructure often located in different jurisdictions from where the crimes are committed, makes determining responsibility challenging.

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Social media and the Internet play an important role in the proliferation of hateful and extreme speech. Looking to contemporary networks of digitally mediated extreme right-wing communication, this essay explores the form, dynamics, and potential governance of digital hate culture.

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Reputable website (professional association, government, university, hospital). Use this for background info for Introduction section.

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Reputable website (professional association, government, university, hospital). Use this for background info for Introduction section.

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Reputable website (professional association, government, university, hospital). Use this for background info for Introduction section.

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Book or Book Chapter (Use this for background info for Introduction section.)

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Book or Book Chapter (Use this for background info for Introduction section.)

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Book or Book Chapter (Use this for background info for Introduction section.)

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Book #1 (The Media and the Rwanda Genocide by Allan Thompson)

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Book #1 (The Media and the Rwanda Genocide by Allan Thompson)

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In this book the author examines the role of media in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. With how local media (print and radio media) fulled the killings and international media ignored key facts in what was actually happening. With local media being used as a tool to spread hate which would lead to the intensification and the Rwanda genocide. In Chapter 11 the book specifically talks about, "Journalism in a time of Hate Media."

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IDRC - International Development Research Centre

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This is the first book to explore both sides of that media equation. The book examines how local radio and print media were used as a tool of hate, encouraging neighbours to turn against each other. It also presents a critique of international media coverage of the cataclysmic events in Rwanda.

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Article 1# (I was tested to the limit — Rwanda genocide survivor by United Nations Africa Renewal)

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Article 1# (I was tested to the limit — Rwanda genocide survivor by United Nations Africa Renewal)

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In this article written by the United Nations and there team Africa Renewal. It tells the personal story of a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide (Consolee Nishimwe) as a teenager.

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Article 2# (I survived: a Rwandan testimony of resilience and hope by Ripple Effect News)

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Article 2# (I survived: a Rwandan testimony of resilience and hope by Ripple Effect News)

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This article written by a UK based non profit, focuses on the story of Emerance Bakankusi. A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide and her story while being a Tutsi during this time.

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Emerance’s story: Surviving the Rwandan Genocide

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Read about how Emerance survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. She was 10 when it started, here’s what she experienced.

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Article 1# (China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang by Lindsay Maizland)

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Article 1# (China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang by Lindsay Maizland)

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In this article written by Lindsay Maizland of The Council of Foreign Relations, focuses on reporting about the recent events in China and how China's repression of the Uyghurs came to be.

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Introduction

The Chinese government has reportedly arbitrarily detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps since 2017. Most of the people who have been detained are Uyghur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang. Beyond the detentions, Uyghurs in the region have been subjected to intense surveillance, forced labor, and involuntary sterilizations, among other rights abuses.

The United States and several other foreign governments have described China's actions in Xinjiang as genocide, while the UN human rights office said that the violations could constitute crimes against humanity. Chinese officials have said that they have not infringed on Uyghurs' rights and claimed that they closed the reeducation camps in 2019. However, international journalists and researchers have documented an ongoing system of mass detention throughout the region using satellite images, individual testimonies, and leaked Chinese government documents.

When did mass detentions of Muslims start?

An estimated eight hundred thousand to two million Uyghurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained since 2017, according to international researchers and U.S. government officials [PDF]. The Chinese government calls the facilities "vocational education and training centers;" the most common terms used by international media organizations and researchers are reeducation camps, internment camps, and detention camps. Some activists describe them as concentration camps.

Outside of the camps, the eleven million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang-officially called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region-have continued to suffer from a decades-long crackdown by Chinese authorities.

Experts estimate that reeducation efforts started in Xinjiang in 2014 and were drastically expanded in 2017. Beginning that year, they documented the construction of new reeducation camps and expansion of existing facilities for mass detention. Reuters journalists, observing satellite imagery, found that thirty-nine of the camps almost tripled in size between April 2017 and August 2018; they covered a total area roughly the size of 140 soccer fields. Similarly, analyzing local and national budgets over the past few years, Germany-based Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz found that construction spending on security-related facilities in Xinjiang increased by 20 billion yuan (around $2.96 billion) in 2017.

In late 2019, Xinjiang's governor said that people detained in the reeducation camps had "graduated." Journalists found that several camps were indeed closed. But the following year, researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified [PDF] more than 380 suspected detention facilities using satellite images. They found that China refashioned some lower-security reeducation camps into formal detention centers or prisons; expanded existing detention centers; and constructed new, high-security detention centers throughout Xinjiang. (Chinese officials have said that ASPI is an anti-China tool funded by Australia and the United States.) Instead of detaining people in reeducation camps, authorities have increasingly used the formal justice system to imprison people for years. In 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that half a million people had been prosecuted since 2017, according to Xinjiang government figures. The Associated Press found that in one county, an estimated one in twenty-five people had been sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges, all of them Uyghurs.

What has happened in the reeducation camps?

Most people detained in the reeducation camps were never charged with crimes and had no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. The detainees seem to have been targeted for a variety of reasons, according to media reports, including traveling to or contacting people from any of the twenty-six countries China considers sensitive, such as Turkey and Afghanistan; attending services at mosques; having more than three children; and sending texts containing Quranic verses. Often, their only crime is being Muslim, human rights groups say, adding that many Uyghurs have been labeled as extremists simply for practicing their religion.

Information on what happened in the camps remains limited, but many detainees who have since fled China described harsh conditions. The UN human rights office released a report [PDF] in 2022 based on interviews with dozens of people, including twenty-six individuals who were detained, that found "patterns of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" in the camps between 2017 and 2019.

The UN report affirmed previous findings by international journalists, researchers, and rights organizations. Various exposés showed that detainees were forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, as well as sing praises for communism and learn Mandarin. Some people reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, including rape. Some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.

Detention also disrupted families. Children whose parents were sent to the camps were often forced to stay in state-run orphanages. Many Uyghur parents living outside of China faced a difficult choice: return home to be with their children and risk detention, or stay abroad, separated from their children and unable to contact them.

What do Chinese officials say about the camps?

Government officials first denied the camps' existence. By late 2018, they started acknowledging that there were "vocational education and training centers" in Xinjiang. They publicly stated that the camps had two purposes: to teach Mandarin, Chinese laws, and vocational skills, and to prevent citizens from becoming influenced by extremist ideas, to "nip terrorist activities in the bud," according to a government report. Pointing out that Xinjiang has not experienced a terrorist attack since December 2016, officials claimed the camps have prevented violence.

As global condemnation of the abuses has grown, Chinese officials and state media have worked to discredit reports on Xinjiang using a range of tactics, including disseminating disinformation and harassing activists. They have repeated a narrative that "anti-China forces" in the United States and other Western countries are spreading "vicious lies." Beijing tried to prevent the UN human rights office from releasing its report. After its release, Chinese officials described it as false information and published a rebuttal describing how foreign governments and organizations "spread numerous rumors and lies" about Xinjiang.

Why is China targeting Uyghurs in Xinjiang?

Chinese officials are concerned that Uyghurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they viewed the camps as a way of eliminating threats to China's territorial integrity, government, and population.

Xinjiang has been claimed by China since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. Some Uyghurs living there refer to the region as East Turkestan and argue that it ought to be independent from China. Xinjiang takes up one-sixth of China's landmass and borders eight countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan.

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the CCP has pushed to Sinicize religion, or shape all religions to conform to the officially atheist party's doctrines and the majority Han-Chinese society's customs. Though the government recognizes five religions -Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism-it has long feared that foreigners could use religious practice to spur separatism.

The Chinese government has come to characterize any expression of Islam in Xinjiang as extremist, a reaction to past independence movements and occasional outbursts of violence. The government has blamed terrorist attacks on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group founded by militant Uyghurs, in recent decades. (In 2020, the United States removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations, saying there was no credible evidence that the group had operated for at least the previous decade.) Following the 9/11 attacks, the Chinese government started justifying its actions toward Uyghurs as part of the Global War on Terrorism. It said it would combat what it calls "the three evils"-separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism-at all costs.

In 2009, rioting in Xinjiang's capital, Ürümqi, broke out as mostly Uyghur demonstrators protested against state-incentivized Han Chinese migration in the region and widespread economic and cultural discrimination. Nearly two hundred people were killed, and experts say it marked a turning point in Beijing's attitude toward Uyghurs. In the eyes of Beijing, all Uyghurs could potentially be terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. During the next few years, authorities blamed Uyghurs for attacks at a local government office, train station, and open-air market, as well as Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

While visiting Xinjiang in 2014, Xi warned of the "toxicity of religious extremism" and advocated for using the tools of "dictatorship" to eliminate Islamist extremism in a series of secret speeches. In the speeches, revealed by the New York Times in 2019, Xi did not explicitly call for arbitrary detention but laid the groundwork for the crackdown in Xinjiang.

In 2017, Xinjiang's government passed an anti-extremism law that prohibited people from growing long beards and wearing veils in public. It also officially recognized the use of training centers to eliminate extremism. Arbitrary detention became widely used by regional officials under Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary, who moved to the region in 2016 after holding a top leadership position in Tibet. Known for increasing the number of police and security checkpoints, as well as state control over Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, Chen dramatically intensified security in Xinjiang. He repeatedly called on officials to "round up everyone who should be rounded up," according to the New York Times report. Chen left the position in late 2021.

Are economic factors involved in this crackdown?

Xinjiang is an important link in China's Belt and Road Initiative, a massive development plan stretching through Asia and Europe. Beijing hopes to eradicate any possibility of separatist activity to continue its development of Xinjiang, which is home to China's largest coal and natural gas reserves. Human rights organizations have observed that the economic benefits of resource extraction and development are often disproportionately enjoyed by Han Chinese people, and Uyghur people are increasingly marginalized.

Many people who were arbitrarily detained have been forced to work, according to multiple reports [PDF]. ASPI estimated that, between 2017 and 2020, eighty thousand previously detained Uyghurs were sent to factories throughout China linked to eighty-three global brands. Researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies say forced labor is an important element of the government's plan for Xinjiang's economic development, which includes making it a hub of textile and apparel manufacturing. Chinese officials have described the policy as "poverty alleviation."

What is happening outside the camps in Xinjiang?

International journalists who have visited the region say that Xinjiang has been turned into a surveillance state that relies on cutting-edge technology to monitor millions of people. Under Chen, Xinjiang was placed under a grid management system, as described in media reports, in which cities and villages were split into squares of about five hundred people. Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, taking their photographs and fingerprints, and searching their cell phones. In some cities, such as western Xinjiang's Kashgar, police checkpoints are found every one hundred yards or so, and facial-recognition cameras are everywhere. The government also collects and stores citizens' biometric data through a required program advertised as Physicals for All.

Much of that information is collected in a massive database, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which then uses artificial intelligence to create lists of so-called suspicious people. Classified Chinese government documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2019 revealed that more than fifteen thousand Xinjiang residents were placed in detention centers during a seven-day period in June 2017 after being flagged by the algorithm. The Chinese government called the leaked documents "pure fabrication."

Many aspects of Muslim life have been erased, journalists reporting from Xinjiang have found. Communist Party members have been recruited since 2014 to stay in Uyghur homes and report on any perceived "extremist" behaviors, including fasting during Ramadan. Officials have destroyed thousands of mosques, often claiming the buildings were shoddily constructed and unsafe for worshippers. Halal food, which is prepared according to Islamic law, has become harder to find in Ürümqi as the local government has launched a campaign against it.

Uyghur and other minority women have reported forced sterilizations and intrauterine device insertions [PDF], and officials have threatened to detain anyone who violates birth-control orders or has too many children. Analyzing government data, Zenz found that in Xinjiang's two prefectures with the highest proportions of Uyghurs, the natural population growth rates (which exclude population change from migration) fell by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018, and declined further still in 2019. Uyghur parents are banned from giving their babies certain names, including Mohammed and Medina.

Beijing has also pressured other governments to repatriate Uyghurs who have fled China, with a 2022 report [PDF] by the Wilson Center finding that more than 1,500 Uyghurs abroad have been detained in their host countries or forced to return to China. In 2015, for example, Thailand returned more than one hundred Uyghurs, and in 2017 Egypt deported several students. The documents released by ICIJ showed that the Chinese government instructed officials to collect information on Chinese Uyghurs living abroad and called for many to be arrested as soon as they reentered China.

What has the global response been?

Much of the world has condemned China's detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The UN human rights office has urged China to release people who have been arbitrarily detained and disclose the whereabouts of those who are missing. After the office released its report in 2022, several Western countries on the UN Human Rights Council were considering a motion against China, potentially with an investigative mechanism.

Lawmakers in several countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have declared that China is committing genocide against Uyghurs; the U.S. government was the first to do so, in January 2021. Many countries have sanctioned Chinese officials and entities linked to rights abuses. The European Union (EU) also sanctioned Chinese officials in 2021, marking the first time the bloc placed restrictions on China since 1989.

Additionally, foreign governments have imposed restrictions to address forced labor in Xinjiang. The United States has essentially banned all imports from the region through its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and the United Kingdom has proposed measures to fine companies that fail to guarantee their supply chains do not use forced labor. The European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution in mid-2022 urging EU countries to ban imports made with forced labor.

China's partners have been notably silent. Prioritizing their economic ties and strategic relationships with China, many governments have ignored the human rights abuses. In June 2022, sixty countries signed a statement calling for the UN human rights chief to respect that Xinjiang-related issues are "China's internal affairs" and stating that they "oppose the politicization of human rights." Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were among the signatories; human rights groups have criticized Muslim-majority countries for condoning the abuses.

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China's Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang

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More than a million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in China's Xinjiang region. The reeducation camps are just one part of the government's crackdown on Uyghurs.

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Article 4# (Interpreting Witness Statements from the Uyghur Genocide by Rahima Mahmut)

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Article 4# (Interpreting Witness Statements from the Uyghur Genocide by Rahima Mahmut)

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In this article written by Rahima Mahmut on Society space (A United States company based in California). Rahima is writing from her own personal experiences as a Uyghur woman on the Uyghur Genocide.

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Surveillance and Repression of Muslim Minorities: Xinjiang and Beyond

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Interpreting Witness Statements from the Uyghur Genocide

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The undercover reporter asked, “Do Uyghurs feel their human rights are being violated?” And the reply was, “They don’t have human rights. It’s not about violation. They just don’t have human rights.”

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(Scholarly) scholarly journal articles of actual empirical scientific studies

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(Scholarly) scholarly journal articles of actual empirical scientific studies

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(i.e. check to see that they have a methods and results sections)

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Related to your topic.

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Article 1# (Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech by Susan Benesch)

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Article 1# (Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech by Susan Benesch)

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In this article by Susan Benesch It details the use of media prior to the Rwandan Genocide. This media created by Ngeze, Nahimana, and Baraya, with a cover inciting violence would later lead to the Genocide without the use of weapons. The article examines multiple media cases like this that would lead to the Rwandan Genocide.

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Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech on JSTOR

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Susan Benesch, Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech, World Policy Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 62-69

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Article 2# (Islamophobia, Chinese Style: Total Internment of Uyghur Muslims by the People's Republic of China by Ali Çaksu)

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Article 2# (Islamophobia, Chinese Style: Total Internment of Uyghur Muslims by the People's Republic of China by Ali Çaksu)

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In this journal article by Ali Çaksu In this article, Ali discuess the issue in China in relation to the internment camps Uyghurs, the physical and psycholofical aspects associaated with the internemt, and the use of surveillance technologies on the Uyghurs people. All carried out in the name of Islamophobia as well as within the homeland of the Uyghur people.

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Islamophobia, Chinese Style: Total Internment of Uyghur Muslims by the People’s Republic of China on JSTOR

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Ali Çaksu, Islamophobia, Chinese Style: Total Internment of Uyghur Muslims by the People’s Republic of China, Islamophobia Studies Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2020), pp. 175-198

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Article 3# (Rwanda Holocaust and Genocide Studies by University of Minnesota) 

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Article 3# (Rwanda Holocaust and Genocide Studies by University of Minnesota) 

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For this source from the University of Minnesota it has a timeline of events from the Rwandan genocide. Background information about the major perpetrators of the Genocide (Belgium Colonizers, Hutus, and RTLM). As well as statistics on Victims of Genocide and Non-Genocidal Violence and Justice and Accountability statistics.

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"Rwanda can be a paradise again, but it will take the love of the entire world to heal my homeland. And that's as it should be, for what happened in Rwanda happened to us all-humanity was wounded by the genocide."
-Immaculée Ilibagiza

Introduction

Beginning in 1994 and lasting only 100 days, the Rwandan Genocide is one of the most notorious modern genocides. During this 100 day period between April and July 1994, nearly one million ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed as the international community and UN peacekeepers stood by.

To understand how such a tragic event could happen, the Rwandan Genocide must first be seen as the product of Belgian colonialism. It was during colonial rule that Rwanda's ethnic groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa became racialized. It was the rigidification of these identities and their relationship with political power that would lay the foundation for genocidal violence. When Rwanda gained independence in 1962, the ethnic majority, Hutus, were left in power. Hutu rule resulted in widespread discrimination against Tutsi, laying the groundwork for the 1994 genocide.

Additionally, the Rwandan Genocide must also be understood as taking place within the context of a civil war. Before the genocide began, a civil war began between the government's armed forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Tutsi exiles in Uganda broke out in 1990. The context of an ongoing war led to anti-Tutsi propaganda, painting Tutsis as dangerous traitors. In 1994, when the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down, the genocide began, in which 800,000 Tutsi and many moderate Hutus were massacred. The violence caused a major humanitarian crisis that continues to affect the Great Lakes Region, and the international community's failure to intervene and stop the violence continues to leave a stain on the reputation of UN Peacekeeping today.

For more information about and an overview of the Rwandan Genocide, check out:

Major Actors

Perpetrators of Genocide: Belgium Colonizers, Hutus, and RTLM

In 1962, Rwanda gained independence from Belgium, but the roughly 30 years of Belgian rule left an indelible mark on the country and its people. While some argue Rwanda's Hutu majority are Bantu people from the southwest, and the Tutsi are Nilotic people that migrated from the northeast, Gourevitch argues these theories are derived from racist legends. Rwandan history is largely undocumented, so explanations about the origins of these two groups and the differences between them, are widely speculative. While it is known that these ethnic identities preceded colonization, these identities, which were quite fluid in practice, became rigidified and racialized under Belgian colonial rule through the use of ID cards. The colonial period was largely characterized by the rule of the Tutsi elite and the exploitation of Hutu. But the 1959 Hutu Peasant Revolt resulted in the Belgians reallocating power to the Hutu majority.

With independence, the Hutus consolidated power and facilitated widespread discrimination against Tutsi, excluding Tutsis from prominent careers and implementing education quotas. A Hutu Power ideology emerged, grounded in the Hamitic Hypothesis, in which Tutsi were recognized as foreigners to Rwanda, rather than an indigenous ethnic group. This racist ideology, initially propagated by Germany and later Belgium during colonization, argued Tutsis were inferior to the Hutu majority. This theory would be used to incite the genocide in 1994. In the months and weeks before the genocide began, Hutu radicals began compiling lists of potential Tutsi targets and moderate Hutus. In addition, the Hutu dominated government began stockpiling weapons, including machetes. These machetes and other rudimentary weapons would be the tools that carried out the genocide.

In mid-1993, Hutu radicals launched their own radio channel, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). The channel would be used to incite hatred towards Tutsi by using propaganda and racist ideology, such as the Hutu Ten Commandments. On April 6, 1994, when the President's plane was shot down, killing both the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, the radical Hutu radio channel announced the deaths, urging Hutus to "go to work" and attack the Tutsi population. The genocide had begun.

Victims of Genocide and Non-Genocidal Violence

To truly understand the Rwandan Genocide, one must move beyond the traditional binary of perpetrators and victims. Rwandans often transcended the categories of victim, perpetrator, bystander and rescuer- acting as a rescuer at one moment and a perpetrator another. Tutsi victim testimony discusses the importance of rescuers- Hutu men and women who risked their own lives to hide and save Tutsi men, women, and children. Tusti survivors discuss a multitude of survival strategies from playing dead to negotiating and buying their safety.

Furthermore, both Hutus and Tutsis were subjected to mass violence, torture, and rape during the genocide. Yet because the victims of the Rwandan Genocide, per the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, were targeted for their ethnic identity solely, the victims of the genocide were Tutsis. It is important to note, however, that Hutus and some Twa were also victims of non-genocidal violence.

For example, both Tutsi and Hutu women were the victims of sexual violence. Hutu propaganda, such as the Hutu Ten Commandments, portrayed Tutsi women as being sexually available. This appealed to the Hutu desire to create an ethnically Hutu-homogenous state. Rape of Tutsi women was systematic, and after the genocide subsided, an outbreak of HIV swept throughout Rwanda. Yet Hutu women also experienced violence from both their Hutu counterparts and members of the Tutsi-led RPF that was progressing through the country trying to end the genocide.

While genocidal violence was widespread throughout the country, some regions experienced more:

Survivor Testimony

Watch Voices of Rwanda director, Taylor Krauss, discuss his work at the University of Minnesota in 2014 ( Link: starts at 10:19)

** For more information about the major actors, check out:

Major Events

1959 Hutu Peasant Revolt, or the Social Revolution

In November 1959, a Hutu uprising killed many Tutsi and caused 330,000 to seek refuge outside Rwanda. The Social Revolution, also known as the Hutu Peasant Revolt, lasted until 1961 and signified the end of Tutsi rule. This defining moment marked the beginning of Hutu power and directly preceded Rwanda's independence from Belgium.

1990 Civil War Begins

On October 1, 1990, the Tutsi-led RPF launched its attack on Rwanda from Uganda, beginning the civil war. These attacks displaced thousands of Rwandans causing great insecurity and fear. This fear was used to construct all Tutsis, regardless of their affiliation with the RPF, as enemies of the state. Moderate Hutus who did not agree with the government's extremist policies were also painted as traitors. It was during this time that ethnic stratification was exacerbated and Hutu ideology strengthened and disseminated.

1993 Arusha Accords and Creation of UNAMIR

In August 1993, RPF officials and President Habyarimana signed a ceasefire and power-sharing agreement known as the Arusha Peace Accords. The Arusha Accords was supposed to end the three-year-long civil war, integrate Tutsi exiles into Rwandan society, and democratize the Rwandan government.

With the passage of the Arusha Accords, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was created. In January 1994, just weeks after arriving in Rwanda, the UN Commander, Candian General Romeo Dallaire, sent a memo to the UN Security Council warning about the stockpile of weapons and an increase in violence between the Hutus and Tutsis. The warning went unheeded.

Despite warnings from the UNAMIR commander, no relief was sent to the country. In addition, the use of Belgian troops for the UN mission violated UN regulations banning colonial powers from providing troops to missions in former colonies. Once the genocide began, European powers sent troops in to pull out their citizens, but they did not provide relief for UNAMIR or assist in helping end the violence. In several cases, there are reports of UN peacekeeping troops acting as bystanders as Hutus massacred Tutsis in churches or in the streets.

April 6, 1994 Plane Crash

On April 6, an airplane carrying both Juvénal Habyarimana, the President of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi was shot down. Both presidents were Hutu and were killed. The assassination was blamed on the Tutsi minority and immediately resulted in the use of roadblocks throughout the country and sparked the genocide. To this day, there is no conclusive evidence regarding who shot down the plane, but theories range from moderate Hutus to the Tutsi-led RPF

July 15, 1994 Genocide Ends

Although the genocide's timeline is considered to be April 7-July 15, the majority of the killings occurred within the first six weeks. An estimated 800,000 people were killed by mid-May, and the accelerated pace of the killings outpaced the Holocaust. The rate of death in the Rwandan Genocide is also noteworthy because of the lack of centrality accompanying it. Unlike the efficiency seen in the Holocaust or Cambodian Genocide, the killings in Rwanda were more reliant on individuals acting out orders from a central command and the use of rudimentary weapons. This often meant victims knew their attackers personally.

After mid-May, the killings began to slow. The RPF gradually took back significant parts of the country, and by July, the RPF pushed the sitting government out of the country and the genocide finally came to an end. Today, the 4th of July is a holiday that commemorates the end of the Rwandan Genocide against Tutsi.

** For more information about the major events and role of UNAMIR, check out:
Curt Goering, Former Chief Operating Officer of Amnesty International, discussed the failure of Amnesty International to respond to the Rwandan genocide from a conference at the University of Minnesota in 2014 (Link: starts at 26:25)
Legacy

Justice and Accountability: The ICTR and Gacaca

Bringing justice to those responsible for the genocide was enormously difficult in Rwanda. More than two-thirds of the judges in Rwanda had fled the country or were killed. With only a third of judges still practicing in the country and prisons at 200% capacity, the Rwandan justice system was overwhelmed. In an effort to address these challenges and foster an atmosphere of justice and accountability, two main justice mechanisms were constructed: the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set up by the UN and Rwanda's own community-driven Gacaca courts.

The ICTR was created to prosecute high-level offenders and thus focused its efforts on prosecuting the main organizers of the genocide. The ICTR indicted 93 individuals, sentencing 62. This includes an interim Prime Minister of Rwanda and two men who ran the propaganda radio station, RTLM. Perhaps most notably, the ICTR is the first tribunal to interpret the definition of genocide, as set forth in the 1948 Geneva Conventions, and it is the first conceptualize rape as a method of genocide.

Alternatively, Gacaca courts sought to prosecute lower-level perpetrators. Attendance was mandatory for all Rwandans, as communities came together to bear witness to the telling of crimes. Just under two million cases were heard at the Gacaca courts, with many people found guilty facing punishments from monetary payments to jail time. Most notably, accused perpetrators were given less time in exchange for their confessions, as seen in the chart below.

Chart from Hola & Brehm (2016)

Commemoration

Today, the genocide is commemorated annually in Rwanda in various Kwibuka (to remember in Kinyarwanda) ceremonies. There are many memorial sites in Rwanda, but the most visited is the Kigali Genocide Memorial which serves as a burial site for 250,000 Tutsi victims. Each year, Rwandans remember the genocide through lectures, reenactments, music, and vigils.

Today, discussion of ethnicity is regulated in the public sphere. Ethnic identities such as Hutu and Tutsi have been made illegal, but the association of Hutu with perpetrators and Tutsi with victims continues to affect social interactions between individuals. In Rwanda, there are both stories of perpetrators being welcomed home by their communities (including survivors), but there are also stories of individuals who refuse to engage in inter-ethnic marriages.
Jean-Damascene Gasanabo, Director General of the National Research and Documentation Center on Genocide at Rwanda's National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide spoke about commemoration and materialization at the University of Minnesota in 2014 (Link: starts at 27:28)
** For more information about transitional justice and commemoration following the Rwandan Genocide, check out:
Hollie Nyseth Brehm and Chris Uggen discussed the Gacaca court system from a conference at the U of MN in 2014 (Link: starts at 24:00)
Connection to Minnesota

Throughout and following the genocide, many refugees fled Rwanda and were repatriated. The majority of refugees were relocated to countries like Belgium, Burundi, Kenya, and Uganda. Only a small amount (about 7,000) were relocated to the US. While it is unclear how many Rwandans were repatriated in Minnesota, since 2013, Minnesota has designated April 7 as Rwandan Genocide Remembrance Day, and more generally, it has named the month of April as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month.

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Article 4# (Don’t Look Away from China’s Atrocities Against the Uyghurs by Lauren Baillie)

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Article 4# (Don’t Look Away from China’s Atrocities Against the Uyghurs by Lauren Baillie)

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In this source by Lauren Baillie by the company United States Institution of Peace. Lauren talks about the progress being made of holding Beijing accountable for its abuses in Xinjiang. As well as Chinas crimes against the Uyghurs and other minority groups. It details International accountability efforts, the Strengthening state’s Judicial and Legislative records, and moving accountability forward.

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Don’t Look Away from China’s Atrocities Against the Uyghurs

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While atrocity crimes — and the pursuit for accountability — in Ukraine have dominated global attention in the last year, momentum has continued to build in seeking accountability for China’s crimes against the Uyghurs and other minority groups. Most of this progress has been made at the state level…

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Article 2# (Remembering the Rwandan genocide 30 years on – how did it happen? by Shola Lawal)

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Article 2# (Remembering the Rwandan genocide 30 years on – how did it happen? by Shola Lawal)

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In this article by Shola Lawal of Al Jazeera News (a news company funded by the government of Qatar) Shola writes about the timeline of events that led to the Rwandan Genocide.

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The remains of 119 people believed to be victims of the Rwandan genocide are retrieved from a site in the Huye District of southern Rwanda on January 23, 2024 [File: AP]

It has been three decades since the April 1994 Rwandan genocide when members of the majority Hutu ethnic group killed an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis, moderate Hutus and members of a third ethnic group, the Twa, in one of the darkest episodes in world history.

A combination of colonial-era favouritism towards the Tutsis that angered other groups, a media landscape that was ripe for spreading hate and the slowness of the international community to respond to the crisis all combined to fuel the genocide.

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The killings have continued to reverberate in East Africa, leading to civil wars and ongoing violence in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Here is how it unfolded:

What caused the genocide?

Tensions were already brewing between Hutus and Tutsis before April 1994.

The Tutsis, who made up 8.4 percent of the population according to a 1991 census, were believed to be genealogically closer to white Europeans under now-debunked scientific theories and were favoured under Belgian colonialism.

The Hutus made up 85 percent of the population, but they could not in practice access education and economic opportunities that the ruling Tutsis could.

"What's commonly understood from historians is that the Belgians used the Tutsis as proxies in ruling the country, and that's why they became privileged," said Lennart Wohlgemuth, a researcher and former professor at Sweden's University of Gothenburg.

Being identified as Tutsi or Hutu before colonialism was "fluid" and based significantly on class with wealthy Hutus able to attain an honorary Tutsi title. "It was really based on how many cows you had, [but] the Belgians built up differences between the two and manipulated it. The Tutsis were better off already, and they, of course, used their privilege to improve their lives," Wohlgemuth said.

In 1932, Belgian colonists further entrenched those differences when they introduced identity cards that included individuals' ethnicity.

In 1959, as independence movements swept across Africa, the Hutus violently revolted against the Belgian colonists and the Tutsi elite. About 120,000 people, primarily Tutsis, fled the killings and attacks, taking refuge in neighbouring countries.

A Hutu government came to power after independence in 1962. The new state from the onset, however, faced threats from Tutsi refugees who had organised in exile.

One group, the Uganda-based Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), aimed to seize power and return exiled refugees by launching attacks on civilian and military targets in Rwanda. The RPF was supported by the Ugandan government of Yoweri Museveni and was led mainly by Tutsi commanders, including Rwanda's current president, Paul Kagame.

By late 1990, a civil war had broken out between the RPF and the Rwandan government.

What was the trigger for the genocide?

The Hutu government cracked down on Tutsis during the war, claiming they were RPF accomplices. Government propaganda painted them as traitors, generating widespread anger against them.

After international intervention, however, the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, signed the Arusha Accords in August 1993 to end the war, resulting in a pause in RPF attacks. The United Nations deployed troops to facilitate the peace process under the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR).

However, some Hutus, even from within the government, seethed at the move, and some kick-started an "extermination" campaign by compiling lists of Tutsi targets.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali. Habyarimana, Ntaryamira and many others on the plane died.

Although it has never been determined whether the RPF or Hutus shot down the aircraft, local media immediately pinned the assassinations on the rebels and told Hutus to "go to work".

The killings began.

How did the genocide happen?

The murders were methodical. Members of government security forces assassinated Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, and 10 Belgian peacekeepers assigned to protect her in her home on April 7, hours after news broadcasts pinned the plane crash on the RPF.

Then, government forces, together with Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe, a name that means "those who attack together", set up roadblocks and barricades in Kigali and began to attack Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The killings quickly spread to other cities.

Soldiers opened fire on crowds while men buoyed by media messages and government officials promising rewards went from house to house, using machetes and sharpened or blunt clubs to hack at those they knew to be Tutsis or any Hutus offering them refuge. They killed neighbours and family members. They raped women and looted homes. Later, victims were herded into large open areas such as stadiums or schools where they were massacred.

The killings ended 100 days later on July 4 when the RPF, which had restarted its advance, seized control of Kigali. Hutus who had taken part in the genocide as well as many Hutu civilians fearing retaliation fled the country into the DRC. Government leaders raided the state coffers and also fled as far as France.

How many people died?

It might never be known exactly how many people were killed as mass graves are still being found today. In January this year, for example, a site containing the remains of 119 people was discovered in the Huye District in southern Rwanda.

Estimates vary. The UN said 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the three-month genocide, but some said people included in that number are those who died of other causes. Other independent monitors put the number at about 500,000 people.

The size of the Tutsi population after the genocide is also unclear because many identified themselves as Hutus to avoid being killed and Rwanda has since scrapped any identification showing ethnicity in its censuses.

Before the genocide, the 1991 census pegged the Tutsi population at 657,000, or 8.4 percent, (although some allege without proof that Habyarimana's government undercounted Tutsis to limit their access to education and other opportunities). Human Rights Watch estimated at least 500,000 Tutsis - 77 percent of their 1991 population - were killed.

An estimated 1.1 million people were killed in total, including thousands of Hutus who died at the hands of the RPF.

Kigali, Kibuye, Butare and Gitarama were some of the worst affected regions.

Radio-Television Libres des Milles Collines (RTML) as well as state-owned Radio Rwanda were central to fuelling hatred against the Tutsis throughout the country. They both spread messages that fed on and escalated anxieties among Hutus that they might once again be ruled over should the advancing RPF succeed.

RTML attracted a young, hip demographic and was an alternative to Radio Rwanda. The station would play popular music and then, in the middle of a track, cut to presenters making demeaning statements like "those people are a dirty group", referring to the Tutsis. The terms "cockroaches" and "snakes" were used frequently in the broadcasts.

RTML was the first to pin Habyarimana's plane attack on the RPF. Months before the genocide, the radio station told listeners to expect a "big event", according to media researchers who have studied its programmes.

During the genocide, attackers paraded in the streets with machetes in one hand and radio sets in the other, listening to Radio Rwanda and RTLM broadcasts that named Tutsis or their protectors and informed people where to find them.

What did the international community do?

Global leaders were aware of the genocide but didn't intervene. For a long time, the UN avoided using the word "genocide" under pressure from the United States, which was reluctant to send in troops. Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on the 20th anniversary of the genocide that the organisation was still "ashamed" for its failure to prevent the genocide.

President Kagame, who headed the Tutsi rebel army that in 1994 ousted the Hutu government and ended the genocide, has since said he was so frustrated by world inaction during the genocide that he considered attacking the local UN mission and stealing its weapons to stop the mass slaughter of civilians.

Before the killings, in early 1994, the commander of UNAMIR, General Romeo Dallaire, had received intelligence about the looming killings and identified secret weapon caches stockpiled by Hutus. He sent five missives from January to March to the UN Security Council asking for the mission's mandate to be expanded so those weapons could be seized and for troop numbers to be boosted. His warnings were ignored.

When the killings began, the UN and Belgian government withdrew UNAMIR peacekeepers. French and Belgian peacekeepers evacuated expatriates in vehicles, refusing to help Tutsis.

A small contingent who remained did protect thousands of people who hid in places like the Hotel des Mille Collines and Amahoro Stadium in Kigali. In one incident, however, soldiers guarding about 2,000 people sheltering in Kigali's Ecole Technique Officielle (Official Technical School) left their posts and tried to evacuate expatriates. Their absence led to a massacre at the school.

France, which armed Habyarimana's government despite having knowledge of plans to kill Tutsis, continued to ally itself with the caretaker Hutu government in the first days of the killings. At the time, France viewed the Uganda-backed RPF as a hostile "Anglophone" force that would negatively impact its "Francafrique" sphere of influence.

The UN finally passed a resolution on May 17, 1994, imposing an arms ban on Rwanda and reinforcing UNAMIR. New soldiers did not start arriving until June, however, when most of the killings had already occurred.

Western media channels have since been criticised for downplaying the murders by describing them as "civil" or "tribal" wars.

What happened afterwards?

The UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in November 1994. It was based in Arusha, Tanzania, which agreed to host the tribunal because "some of those people would not be free to go to Rwanda, so it was the only possible way [for the UN] to create an independent justice system," according to Wohlgemuth.

The court tried several high-profile leaders of the genocide, including caretaker Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who was handed a life sentence for inciting, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent genocide. He was also sentenced on two counts of crimes against humanity. The tribunal convicted 61 people in total.

Trials in Rwanda itself began in 1996, focusing in particular on those who planned, instigated, supervised or led the killings. They also prosecuted rape. Twenty-two of the defendants found guilty of the worst crimes were sentenced to death by firing squad.

Most cases were tried in informal community courts because the judicial infrastructure was destroyed during the genocide and many legal staff had fled, been killed or imprisoned.

To address an enormous backlog of cases - about 150,000 people were imprisoned in the aftermath of the genocide - the government in 2001 launched the Gacaca system. The traditional mechanism, previously used to resolve community conflicts, was used to try defendants who were not government officials or top-level planners. The charges were filed in categories: planning or inciting genocide including sexual violence, causing grievous bodily harm, and looting or other property offences. Community members elected judges for more than 12,000 courts, who then tried the accused.

From 800,000 to a million people stood trial in the courts. Sentences ranged from prison terms for serious crimes like planning genocide and rape to community service for lesser offences.

The courts were criticised for exposing survivors as they gave evidence. They often faced threats and intimidation from people accused of crimes, and judges in some cases were revealed to have participated in the genocide themselves. Some also accused the system of failing to try cases of RPF attacks. However, others said it helped reconcile communities. The courts officially closed in 2012.

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What caused the Rwandan genocide 30 years ago?

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Local media, in particular, were crucial in aiding the mass killings while world media ignored or underplayed them.

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Article 3# (The Witness Why is global outrage about the Uyghur genocide muted? Human rights advocate Nury Turkel has some ideas. By Amy Mackinnon)

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Article 3# (The Witness Why is global outrage about the Uyghur genocide muted? Human rights advocate Nury Turkel has some ideas. By Amy Mackinnon)

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In this article by Amy Mackinnon of ForgeinPolicy.com(A Washington based company in the United States) Amy writes about an interview with Nury Turkel. Nury position is as the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. But he was born in a detention center in China’s Xinjiang in the 1970s amid the Cultural Revolution. This interview draws parallels from the Cultural revolution of the 1970s and of the present Uyghurs Genocide taking place.

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If you were looking for proof that the American dream is still alive and well, then Nury Turkel is pretty much it. The chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was born in a detention center in China's Xinjiang region in 1970 amid the Cultural Revolution, which saw millions of people killed and millions more persecuted. Turkel's 19-year-old mother, Ayeshe, gave birth with her lower body encased in a cast. Weeks earlier, she had fallen down the stairs of the prison because she was so weak with hunger, fracturing her hip and leg.

Dressed in Hugo Boss suits with a home in the Virginia suburbs and an intimidating international travel schedule, Turkel is in many ways a prototypical man of Washington. Turkel came to the United States in 1995 to study first in Idaho before receiving his law degree from American University in Washington D.C. In 2020, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people for his efforts to raise the profile of China's systematic repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in his native Xinjiang. That same year, he was appointed by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the USCIRF, a bipartisan agency that advises on issues pertaining to religious freedom around the world.

All the same, Turkel is plagued with survivor's guilt. Prison camps have once again appeared in his native Xinjiang in northwestern China-only unlike the Cultural Revolution, which was a nationwide purge, the brutality of the state this time has been trained on Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. More than a million people have been a Western university. Camp survivors and human rights groups have reported instances of torture, forced abortion and sterilization, rape, and slavery while the United States has deemed China's campaign against the Uyghurs to be a detained in the camps for arbitrary reasons, including having a , having contacts abroad, or having genocide. Watching the largest arbitrary internment of a minority group since the Holocaust from afar, Turkel grapples with the question: What do you do when "never again" is happening once more?

"I don't see passion. I don't see a sense of urgency," Turkel said about the world's response to China's crackdown on Uyghurs. "I don't see a sense of responsibility that history tasked us with this awesome responsibility to stop this genocide so that we can prevent the next one."

We are meeting at the restaurant Bostan Uyghur Cuisine, which (like much of the best food in the D.C. area) is nestled in a strip mall in Northern Virginia between a 7-Eleven and an auto parts store. Heaping plates of laghman, thick hand-pulled noodles topped with stir-fried beef and vegetables, and steaming dumplings are a respite from the cold rain outside. Turkel confesses he dined here the previous night.

One of the most chilling dimensions of China's crackdown on Uyghurs is how the world has been unable-and in many instances, unwilling-to stop it. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump sanctions over the mass internment of Uyghurs, which got underway in 2017, as he a trade deal with China. Much of the including Muslim world, cowed by China's economic might, has remained largely silent while several states- Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates-have actively cooperated with Beijing's requests to deport Uyghurs back to China, where they risk imprisonment.

Turkel tells me his dark blue Hugo Boss suit jacket is, in fact, 10 years old. He favored the brand for suits but broke with it in recent years following that it continued to source their cotton from suppliers with extensive ties in Xinjiang-tainted, perhaps, with forced labor by imprisoned Uyghurs. (In a May 2022 statement, the company said it " has not procured any goods from direct suppliers originating in the Xinjiang region." )

"Even as a consumer, I feel complicit and stuck," Turkel said, who now opts to instead get most of his tailoring done in Turkey once a year.

As the murkiness over the Hugo Boss supply chain demonstrates, it's hard to tell who is sourcing from Xinjiang and who isn't. Chinese supply chains are opaque; because of this, Congress voted with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2021 to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which operates on the assumption that any goods coming from the region should be assumed to be the product of forced labor unless proven otherwise. Since the beginning of 2022, more than from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A further 400 shipments with a combined value of almost $24 million have been barred from entering U.S. markets due to concerns that they are tainted with Uyghur forced labor, according to data $545 million worth of goods are still being held by the agency for screening.

China's campaign against the Uyghurs is the most globalized genocide in history. Products produced by of prisoners. slave labor end up in the homes of consumers around the world-including, as of recently, hair weaves seized by U.S. customs that are thought to be the

"With this whole apparatus, the Chinese government system, the communist system, made even consumers complicit in the ongoing crimes against humanity," Turkel said. In the wake of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 1,000 companies pulled out of the Russian market. But the costs of boycotting China and its almost 1.5 billion potential consumers are just too high for many companies.

Turkel sees public education of consumers elsewhere in the world as an alternate route to focus companies' attention. "This is why I never get tired of even telling five people that they [should] stop buying slave labor through these products. Once the companies start seeing the balance sheet drop in sales, they will look [at] where did it go wrong," he said.

It's a tricky web to unwind. The surveillance and facial recognition system that monitors almost every aspect of Uyghurs' daily life in Xinjiang was, at least for a time, by advanced semiconductors produced by U.S. companies before the Trump and Biden administration cracked down on the sale of chips to China. Having perfected its model of artificial intelligence-enabled repression in Xinjiang, China has now become a world leader in the export of facial recognition technology and counts a slate of authoritarian regimes among its .

Turkel has not seen his mother since 2004 and is unsure whether he will ever see her again after Chinese authorities confiscated her passport, preventing her from traveling overseas, in late 2016. "We said goodbye to each other a long time ago," he said. "Saying goodbye to a living, breathing human being is not easy."

Mother and son spent the first five months of his life together confined to a gloomy Kashgar prison. The experience forged a close bond, so much so that the family used to joke that he was an only child-even after the subsequent arrival of his three younger brothers, Turkel recounts in his memoir, No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs.

After first coming to the United States as a graduate student, Turkel later received asylum, prohibiting him from ever returning to China. Even if he were to try, he would face almost certain imprisonment. When Turkel's father passed away last year, he was unable to attend the funeral. "I could not even be at my mother's side holding her hand by my dad's casket," he said.

As it is, there is no firewall between his personal and professional life. Turkel was elected chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2022 and is chair of the Board of Directors of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a nonprofit that seeks to promote the rights of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang. What keeps him going is the hope that future generations will be spared. "This family time that the Chinese took away from me can never be returned," he said. "I don't want my children, or anybody's children, to go through what I have gone through. It is so wrong."

One aspect of the Uyghur genocide that has always confounded me is why outrage among the global public has been so muted. There is no equivalent of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, which campaigned for decades against racial segregation in South Africa, nor of Live Aid, which rallied celebrities to raise millions of dollars for famine relief in Africa, as well as no historic marches along the National Mall in Washington. The reasons why one crisis gets more attention and funding than another often reveal uncomfortable truths about people and governments.

I hesitate because it seems almost too pointed, too painful, to ask Turkel why he thinks this is. His answer reveals he's thought about it a lot. "Three possible explanations," he said, matter of factly. "The adversary is the wrong kind of adversary to take on." Second is a lack of public figures, celebrities, and luminaries lending their names to the Uyghur cause. "Hollywood is dead silent. The sports world is dead silent," Turkel added. During the genocide in Darfur in the 2000s, celebrities-including actors George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Mia Farrow-rallied to raise awareness of atrocities being carried out by the government of Sudan and its proxy, the Janjaweed militia. The Uyghurs have had no such celebrity patron.

And third, there's the fact that Uyghurs are predominantly Muslim, a religion whose adherents have been subject to intense scrutiny and discrimination in the West in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Although the United States has pivoted away from the war on terrorism in recent years, Beijing has invoked its rhetoric to cloak its crackdown in the language of counterterrorism. Chinese officials have claimed that its system of "reeducation" camps are needed to weed out "extremist" sentiment in the region. There is little basis in reality to justify the extreme nature of the crackdown, but Beijing's claims have (in some ways) succeeded in obfuscating the situation.

"If a government collectively punishes a Muslim people under the guise of fighting terrorism and extremism, that can affect your thinking," Turkel said. "That can make you pull back from your potential support."

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Why is global outrage about the Uyghur genocide muted? Human rights advocate Nury Turkel has some ideas.