Leaked list of people sentenced on terrorism-related charges reveals scale of imprisonment in China's Uyghur heartland

Nearly one in 25 people in a county in the Uyghur heartland of China has been sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges, in what is the highest known imprisonment rate in the world, according to an Associated Press review of leaked data. Key points: The list is the biggest to emerge to date with the names of imprisoned Uyghurs It shows the prison sentences across the county were for two to 25 years, with an average of nine years Most prisoners were arrested in 2017 A list obtained and partially verified by the AP cites the names of more than 10,000 Uyghurs sent to prison in just Konasheher county alone, one of dozens in southern Xinjiang. The list was obtained by Xinjiang scholar Gene Bunin from an anonymous source who described themselves as a member of China's Han Chinese majority who is "opposed to the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang". 'These charges are absurd' China is using the law "as a fig leaf of legality", in part to try to deflect international criticism about holding Uyghurs, said Jeremy Daum, a criminal law expert at Yale University's Paul Tsai China Centre. Xi Jinping 'took a page out of Mao's playbook' in China's repression of Uyghurs, research finds Photo shows A farmer walks past propaganda depicting ethnic minority residents reading the Chinese constitution China is completely reshaping how people act and speak in its Xinjiang region, a new report finds.