Leaked Documents Show Chinese President Xi Ordered Uyghur Genocide In ‘Top Secret’ Speeches

Documents obtained by human rights activists from the People’s Republic of China show that Xi Jinping, the country’s president, ordered the implementation of measures to persecute Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province in “top secret” speeches during the 2010s.

Xi reportedly gave the orders in a series of speeches and statements, Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow with Victims of Communism, claimed in a Twitter thread on Nov. 29, citing 317 pages of documents leaked to the Uyghur Tribunal this past September.

“The leak is an identical subset of the Xinjiang Papers first reported by the New York Times in 2019,” Zenz tweeted, “BUT: the Times never published the transcripts, didn’t mention several key documents, didn’t bring out key links, and didn’t disclose the secrecy level of Xi’s speeches.”

Zenz’s thread on Twitter summarized a lengthy introduction released by the Uyghur Tribunal on Nov. 27 that discussed the 11 “high-resolution digital images of original Chinese paper documents.”

One estimate claims as many as two million Uyghurs are being held in camps by the Chinese government. A number of companies, including Nike and Apple, have reportedly benefited from forced labor camps, according to multiple reports.

The Trump administration declared that genocide was taking place shortly before leaving office on Jan. 20. Since the Biden administration took office, the declaration has remained in place, although former Secretary of State John Kerry has made statements that the situation should not preclude cooperation with China on climate change.

The Chinese government has reacted harshly when criticized over its human rights record. It banned the Boston Celtics from Chinese media after Enes Kanter spoke out, and a Marriott hotel in Prague cancelled a planned event by activists seeking to publicize the human rights situation involving Uyghurs.