China says 13,000 terrorists arrested since 2014

China has said it has arrested nearly 13,000 people it describes as terrorists in the traditionally Islamic region of Xinjiang since 2014 and broken up hundreds of “terrorist gangs.”

The figures were included in a government report on the situation in the restive northwestern territory that seeks to respond to growing criticism over the internment of an estimated one million members of the Uighur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.

The lengthy report issued on Monday also said the “law-based de-radicalization” in Xinjiang has curbed the rise and spread of religious extremism.

Since 2014, Xinjiang has “destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials”, it added.

Only a small minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways, the paper said.

It also gave a breakdown of 30 attacks since 1990, with the last one recorded in December 2016, saying 458 people had died and at least 2,540 were wounded as a consequence of attacks and other unrest.

The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper.

Despite the region’s religious, linguistic and cultural differences with the rest of the country, China says Xinjiang has been Chinese territory since ancient times.

In addition to their answering concerns about violence, experts and Uighur activists believe the camps are part of an aggressive government campaign to erode the identities of the Central Asian groups who called the region home long before waves of Han migrants arrived in recent decades.

Turkey is the only Islamic country that has regularly expressed concern about the situation in Xinjiang, due to cultural links with the Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language.

China has denounced Turkish concern as unwarranted and interference in its internal affairs.