• mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        I’m talking about that very page being renamed from “uyghur genocide” to “persecution of uyghurs in china”

        Protip: if you think that someones “so dumb it hurts” you’re likely misunderstanding something or missing info. Some humility goes a long way.

        see the “frequently asked questions” on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3APersecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China

        Q1: When was consensus established to name the page Persecution of Uyghurs in China?

        A1: The current title reflects the consensus established in the most recent move discussion (22 January 2024). Two previous widely attended move discussions (30 June 2020 and 1 April 2021) had resulted in this page being titled Uyghur genocide. Please see Logs and discussions below for the full list of move discussions. In these discussions, editors discussed reporting from reliable sources in light of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CRITERIA, the first two times establishing an affirmative consensus that the title “Uyghur genocide” is an appropriate name for the article. The third debate, immediately following a 12 January 2024 discussion that was closed as “not moved”, citing WP:NCENPOV as the naming convention guideline justifying a shift to the new name.

            • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Why!? We already know it is a genocide.

              The name changed because it doesn’t meet the statutory definition of the law. This has zero to do with it being a genocide outside of one narrow definition. This is the same logic that Maga uses to deny Trump is a rapist

              People also argue if what is happening in Palestine is a genocide. There are many people who don’t believe what happened to the Native Americans is an ongoing genocide or what the US has done by locking up and destroying minority families (also a genocide). Just because they aren’t actively slaughtering them doesn’t suddenly make it not a genocide.

              https://www.genocidewatch.com/what-is-genocide

              Shouldn’t you go somewhere else to deny this genocide, since that is your part? A genocide denier through and through.

              • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 days ago

                The name changed because it doesn’t meet the statutory definition of the law. This has zero to do with it being a genocide outside of one narrow definition

                not the impression what I got. See the discussion about it here, it seems the main issue was a lack of sources calling it the “uyghur genocide”.

                mainly the discussion was kicked off because it revealed wikipedia’s western bias:

                Uyghur genocide → Uyghur genocide accusation – In line with Palestinian genocide accusation and doesn’t imply it’s a settled fact like the current title does, but also still in line with the WP:COMMONNAME arguments (which I don’t agree with, but this is a compromise) since it includes the supposed common name. The discrepancy between the current titles of this page and Palestinian genocide accusation implies a hypocrisy on the part of Wikipedia.

                So clearly they’re arguing about whether it’s a “settled fact” or not. The discussion there is about a lack of scholarly articles calling it “genocide” and I don’t see anyone arguing it on the basis of it not meeting any sort of legal criteria.

                Also you can stop posting the same material over and over again, I promise you I have seen at least the source material, back when I made my deep dive and found it lacking. If there’s anything new on this issue within the last 3 years please do let me know. Otherwise it seems like everybody dropped it as the so-called “human rights violations” peetered out due to lack of us-backed salafi terrorism.

                • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  Thanks for deep diving into the reason why. Although there are many scholarly articles calling it a genocide

                  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2021.2001556#abstract

                  https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/persecution-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang-torture-crimes-against-humanity-and-genocide

                  https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/November_2021_Uyghur_Report.pdf

                  https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/9/1/1

                  https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Chinas-Breaches-of-the-GC3.pdf

                  https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=gsp

                  I said it was settled fact. That is not up for debate with me, but you are of course welcome to continue to deny the genocide like you have been.

                  I am not just posting for you, I am very aware you don’t consider any sources I use valid. This is a common tactic of tankies. No surprise there.

                  You are of course wrong, but that is okay. You are primarily driven by ideology rather than logic. This allows you to discredit everything that disagrees with your view as western propaganda which really isn’t wrong as everything is technically propaganda. The devil is in sussing out what is true and what is not by understanding the intent and circumstances.

                  I don’t believe China is slaughtering Uyghur, although they have definitely killed more than just what normal police action would cause. What they are doing is a slow burn genocide similar to what the US has been doing for years. A polite genocide if you will.

                  I don’t really have a dog in this fight because I am not pro China or pro USA. I have been involved with Amnesty International and I have assisted in getting political prisoners released from both countries. I truly view both nations as utterly corrupt partners in making billionaires richer. Why any self respecting leftist would carry water for them is beyond me.

                  • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    3 days ago

                    I’m not gonna go do a deepdive again. It is such a chore to even find falsifiable claims buried in the footnotes why are they not front and center? I made such a deep dive back in 2023 found it lacking. If there is new material from then please do share it. At the moment it just looks like there is no more genocide, if there ever was one.

                    I am not just posting for you, I am very aware you don’t consider any sources I use valid. This is a common tactic of tankies. No surprise there.

                    Well the first link leans on Zenz so I’m just gonna throw it out based on what I already know about him and his “reports”. The second one links the CIA directly so I’m not gonna bother with it either. Granted it’s not material to the article but it shows who is ultimately behind this article and it’s the biggest human rights violator on the planet. The third[1] I actually then looked at, now this really is the first thread I pulled and since I actually have to study (and type this comment twice because I accidently deleted the entirety of it) the only thread. Looking at the ToC there is section about “Destruction of Uyghur religious and cultural property” which seems like a good place to start looking for falsifiable claims. It alleges “razing of mosques” citing a Uyghur Human Rights Project report[2] so lets go there. The first mosque in the “Demolished mosques” section talks about the Keriya Id Kah Mosque. There is a thing about it’s gatehouse getting demolished:

                    Pictures of the mosque gatehouse appear as recently as March 2018. The demolition of the gatehouse appears to have taken place on the 19th or 20th of the month, according to analysis from Bellingcat. The prayer hall remains standing.

                    but earlier it was said that

                    In 1997 towards the north gate of the mosque a three story 227 square meter gatehouse was built in the style from the times of Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan using 80,000 RMB from the Xinjiang Ministry of Cultural and Religious Affairs along with 500,000 RMB collected from the people of Keriya.

                    so it’s really not ancient history that got demolished here. I don’t exactly know why, but there are plenty of reasons for demolishing such a structure. Later there is this quote saying

                    The Imams and the preachers of the mosque faced the same fate as the mosque.

                    so they are alleging the mosque got razed after all?? It’s just bonkers how hard it is to pin down an actual claim here. The mosque certainly seems to still be standing as a quick google to the coordinates shown in the picture will tell you. What’s more is that these areas can be travelled by tourists, got travelled. Of course the citations of that “report” link to the CIA as well, so I don’t know why I bothered. Why is there no organic resistance or reporting going on? Why does it all keep tying into the CIA?? What’s more, I spent an hour looking at the wrong mosque, I confused the one in kashgar with the on in keriya. Because the information is completely scattered all over, self-contradictory and I have no clue whether at any given point the piece I’m reading is alleging all-out genocide, cultural genocide, human rights abuses or what.

                    Did you ever bother to verify what these sources are talking about? Because this was the common theme back when I looked into it, it somehow always looped back to the CIA.

                    You are of course wrong, but that is okay. You are primarily driven by ideology rather than logic.

                    See these smug self-satisfied zingers is the reason why I don’t believe you care about the people of xinjiang one iota. It’s just about feeling superior to the tankies and non-westerners. You’re also wrong about me being “driven by ideology” as the breaking down xinjiang reporting is what got me into marxism and on the “tankie” side of things, not the other way around. I can’t explain just how uncomfortable it was to break with all the instutions and media that gave a feeling of safety. That sinking feeling the more I looked into exactly the kind of sources you posted. I previously thought that I got a clear view of the goings on in the world by consuming western media and having to break with all of it (really all of it, “Der Spiegel”, BBC, whatever yank news outlets I read before, they all were repeating it in lockstep) had me reeling. That feeling of having your worldview turned upside up is freeing but deeply uncomfortable. Of course whatever doubts I still had were put to rest with the reporting on the gaza genocide after Operation Al-Aqsa flood and the past years really solidified just how much of a puppet theatre it all is.

                    The devil is in sussing out what is true and what is not by understanding the intent and circumstances.

                    it really is, but I have a feeling you actually didn’t look at the material that closely.

                    I truly view both nations as utterly corrupt partners in making billionaires richer.

                    well good news on that front, China is cleaning up with it’s billionaires https://hexbear.net/post/2802029

                    Since hitting a peak of 1,185 in 2021, Hurun said the number of dollar billionaires had been reduced to 753, with the 36 per cent decline exceeding a 10 per cent fall in the renminbi’s value against the dollar over the same period.[3]


                    1. https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/November_2021_Uyghur_Report.pdf ↩︎

                    2. https://docs.uhrp.org/pdf/UHRP_report_Demolishing_Faith.pdf ↩︎

                    3. https://archive.is/gNdbC#selection-2157.0-2157.231 ↩︎

      • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 days ago

        I have not seen any evidence beyond some generic jail images, there seems to be no resistance organisation within xinjiang, i do not see a reason for china to do this and all the reporting is filled with non-objective loaded language like “authoritarian”, “brutal crackdown”, “chinese regime” etc.

        compare all of the reporting from this so-call “genocide” to the actual reporting (the non-western or indie kind) from the actually ongoing genocide of the palestinians, its night and day.

        then there were many predominantly muslim countries that sent officials to visit xinjiang and they came back satisfied that there was no ongoing genocide. We get more information out of the tightly regulated gaza ghetto than an entire autonomous region in china. If you want some more hard facts and recent history of the region I can dig some stuff up if you want, I don’t remember most of it since it’s been a while since I looked at this stuff myself.

        • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          You referred to Wikipedia as an authority earlier, so here’s some Wikipedia commentary about recent developments in Xinjiang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China#Classification_of_abuses

          And an article about terrorism/resistance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Xinjiang

          And there’s plenty of reasons for China to do this - they’ve long seen the land there as Chinese, regardless of the people living on it. Not to mention natural resources, extending borders, marshaling resources to fight capitalist imperialism, et cetera, et cetera…

          Secondly, this is the reason I’m asking people what they think genocide is. The ICC would define genocide very narrowly, just the slaughter of people en masse based on ethnicity. Historians and academics actually have a much broader view of genocide, including cultural replacement actions like eliminating languages, displacement, and destruction of culturally important locations. Israel does all of this to Palestine, as well as the USA and Canada to native peoples.

          So let’s leave the rubric of “genocide” and consider what the CCP is actually doing there. It seems obvious that they want to erase Uyghur culture and replace it with Han. There can be reasons for Uyghurs to want Chinese intervention, and reasons not. But as an individualist Westerner, I consider consent to be one of the most important virtues in society, and China is radically altering (if not erasing) Uyghur land and culture without any consent on the part of the Uyghurs. In my view, it’s just the same imperialism and colonialism that the West has been doing for centuries. Do you agree? What did I get wrong?

          • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            4 days ago

            You referred to Wikipedia as an authority earlier

            Not at all, on the contrary, I was pointed out that even wikipedia doesn’t call it a genocide anymore.

            It seems obvious that they want to erase Uyghur culture and replace it with Han.

            Not to me, because whenever I look on xiaohongshu for uyghur content there is a lot to find there. The street signs have both uyghur and chinese letters, uyghur is taught in schools, people can practice their faith, I don’t see this erasure at all. Whole-ass street festivals where uyghur people celebrate with their food and music, broadcast on a chinese app aimed mainly at chinese people.

            And there’s plenty of reasons for China to do this - they’ve long seen the land there as Chinese, regardless of the people living on it.

            Who is “they” in this case? The government of china underwent multiple radical transformations. I wouldn’t think that the china of today has the same goals as the china of even 50 years ago. Or do you mean the people of china? I am not aware of any popular hateful sentiment towards uyghur people. Shouldn’t there be a lot anti-uyghur propaganda around to rally the han chinese against the uyghurs? Granted I’m not super prolific on chinese media, I occasionally go to xiaohongshu but it would be pretty convincing evidence if there was a governmental campaign to rally hate amongst the han chinese against the uyghur people.

            Not to mention natural resources, extending borders, marshaling resources to fight capitalist imperialism, et cetera, et cetera…

            Why do they need erase the culture of the uyghur people to get access to the natural resources there? The extending of borders doesn’t make sense to me, xinjiang is already a part of the republic? And who benefits from all this? A genocide is a massive operation, no one undertakes genocide unless they don’t expect immense profits from it. E. g. during the holocaust it was companies like IG Farben, Bayer, Lufthansa, Siemens, Rheinmetall and so on. Also what was the spark that set it off? The reporting is just like, nothing prior to like 2019 or so, suddenly genocide, then some backtracking and now radio silence again.

            The ICC would define genocide very narrowly, just the slaughter of people en masse based on ethnicity

            And that’s what most people understand under genocide. Also the forcible sterilisation would fall under the ICC definition but aside from that one legal opinion from like 5 years or so is there anything new on that? What about the 1 million people in detention have they been freed? Like I see these articles like this one again after a couple years now and they seem even less credible, just really bombastic flashy effects but at it’s core, just some satellite images showing like 3 or 4 construction sites to prove abductions of hundreds of thousands, that’s the thing that gets me. Hundreds of thousands. That’s a massive massive operation, I would expect more evidence and local resistance groups and aid networks and so on…

            So let’s leave the rubric of “genocide”

            So no genocide in Xinjiang? Or are we going by another definition of genocide?

            • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.world
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              1. I wanted to know how you formed your opinion, and I also had never heard of Xiaohongshu before (I just now made the connection that it’s RedNote). So, cool.
              2. I’m not confident of what’s happening in Xinjiang. I know I’m surrounded by US/Western propaganda, and I’m trying to cut through it without succumbing to anyone else’s propaganda.
              3. I grew up in a liberal society, and sometimes ML Theory seems like a really strange way of looking at the world. So I’m not building any opinions based on what I guess someone’s motivations are (especially the CCP).
              4. I’ve been given to believe that genocide is a liberal idea, because it’s couched in false consciousness ideas about race and ethnicity. So a hypothetical AES state could commit mass murder, but not necessarily genocide. What do you think?
              • On 1. yeah I should have clarified sorry. After the TikTok exodus I got curious and had a look

                On 2. I think it was this comment that had a lot of vital background information, like e.g. that the sufi terrorist attacks that started this whole ordeal were US-backed and orchestrated. That they were doing in Xinjiang what they had previously done in Afghanistan with the mujaheddin. Other links are compiled by davel for instance here.

                On 3. I had the exact opposite reaction lol. When reading Marx and Lenin I thought it such a natural way of looking at the world. I remember reading “Wagelabor and capital” I thinking that the individual observation weren’t a great new insight (when demand down then price go down as well who knew?) but put together they formed a new understanding of the world. Looking at stuff like the reserve army of labor gave me a whole new perspective of the world how I relate to society etc.

                Part of that is because being christian with a protestant upbringing I had to repeatedly synthesize contradictions. Evolution vs creationism being one of the bigger ones. Lately I’m on veganism vs carnism and speciesm practiced by Jesus himself which might be the one that does it in if I’m to be honest. It’s of course not helped by the fact that all the churches around here are turbozionist so I feel completely estranged from what I used to consider my community. But the whole idea of holding two contradictory concepts and instead of rejecting one or the other marrying them and forming a new understanding of both was something I had already done pretty much all my life.

                It completely reshaped my understanding of nazi germany for instance, from one where the nazis were evil because they just hated minorities and people who thought different, to the nazis were the evil expression of the capitalists. The reason the nazis were able to gain power is because they got bankrolled by the industry leaders and the reason the industry leaders bankrolled them is because they were reeling from the aftermath of world war 1 and because they were deathly afraid of a communist revolution in Germany akin to the ones in the soviet states. Taking it further and seeing that the holocaust was basically capitalism at work, that it was animal agriculture applied to humans, made me go vegan in a snap. It all was a smooth transition once I had to break with western media which started with the Xinjiang propaganda campaign until I was a vocal vegan marxist.

                On 4. I don’t know where you got that from, genocide is a material act. The liberal classifications of race and ethnicity are idealist of course but the result, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for instance, is material reality. A hypothetical AES (emphasis on the A) state wouldn’t classify people by race and ethnicity since they are idealist constructs. However people being part of different cultures is also material reality. That some people will identify as “Uyghur” while others won’t and that this shapes their actions and how they relate to themselves and others is also real. There of course are genocides by states that purport to be socialist. E.g. the khmer rouge, Luna Oi has a great video about them here, but I would say that a state that takes their socialism seriously wouldn’t commit a genocide, there is no incentive to.

                • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  Thanks for sharing all that. I think you and I have a lot in common, actually. I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and never really felt close to that community. I’ve always felt like an outsider as well, but I think we diverge in that I identify with my outsider-ness and appreciate the freedom of individuality. But I also identify as an introvert, happier on my own or with close friends than with large groups or strangers. I wonder if there’s some overlap there? Do you consider yourself introverted or extroverted?

                  • Oh yeah definitely an introvert, also since I grew up in a muslim-majority country where the christian community was very tight-knit coming to Germany I definitely felt more like an outsider to the communities here, overwhelmed by the amount of choice of communities really at first, but lately the lack of communities that I could feel at ease at due to my antizionism. But there’s a lot of good in being part of any organization, having a role and helping out to oneself which is why I’ll be looking for another community once I have some more free time.

                    I don’t know where you exactly are, but a soup kitchen or something like that where you help once a week is a really cool thing to hone social-skills in a low-risk setting since you can just stop going there at any time. Also it’s really fun to be in charge of something, and to be “the person” so thats cool.

            • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Look at this guy. Same logic would be used to say no Native American or Palestinian genocide either.

              I am sorry, but I don’t buy it for a second.

              • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                4 days ago

                Same logic would be used to say no Native American or Palestinian genocide either.

                I don’t follow? We have way more evidence of both genocides, both of the actions, mass killings, child abductions etc., as well as propaganda campaigns to stoke hatred and fear. Neither group is very free to practice their religions and culture, facing harassment and red tape etc. I don’t see the parallels at all.

                I am sorry, but I don’t buy it for a second.

                I’m not looking to convince, I’m just giving my POV as asked. These were the types of questions I saw the tankies be able to answer and that’s what ultimately convinced me that the whole thing is just a US propaganda psy-op. Back in like 2019-2020 I was breathlessly reading “Der Spiegel” articles about systematic rape of uyghur women in prisons and bought into it wholesale. I got flipped, so to speak, in 2023 or so. So what I’m portraying here is what people that want to “flip” me back are up against.

                • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  No proof, a psyop, you believe tankies!? Oh my God.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Hard_Campaign_Against_Violent_Terrorism

                  Westerners deciding to crack down on Muslims equals bad but Chinese equals good. If you think there is logical consistency with tankies you got another thing coming.

                  Are you surprised the world is not making a bigger deal out of Muslim suppression? Not me, par for the course.

                  There is almost no proof of the Native American Genocide so I guess it must have never happened. Looks like the natives are doing just fine with their casinos!

                  So dumb it hurts.

                  And then you deny the rapes!? What in the literal fuck is wrong with you.

                  Oh you are just playing devil’s advocate as a pretend tanky!?

                  https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/allegations-of-shackled-students-and-gang-rape-inside-china-s-detention-camps

                  Sure no proof except countless stories. The thing is this is human nature. Be it detention or “reeducation” rape always goes hand in hand. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are. This is the injustice of concentrating people.

                  • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    4 days ago

                    If you think there is logical consistency with tankies you got another thing coming.

                    See that’s all I ever see from those looking to counter it, just outright smug dismissal and no actual argument. That’s how they got me.

                    Are you surprised the world is not making a bigger deal out of Muslim suppression? Not me, par for the course.

                    I’m sorry have you seen the reaction in the muslim world to the palestinian genocide? The only one making a “big” deal out of this so-called genocide are the countries hostile to china. And even they stopped caring about it in the past couple years.

                    There is almost no proof of the Native American Genocide so I guess it must have never happened. Looks like the natives are doing just fine with their casinos!

                    Good lord what are you talking about?

                    smug self-righteous noises

                    This is how I know that you don’t actually care to win other people over, or about the population of Xinjiang, you’re just grandstanding, euphoric from your own intelligence. You declaring something stupid doesn’t make it so. I found the “tankie” position far better researched on every topic. That’s why I “joined” them. I made an account on hexbear, I post there regularly and I haven’t seen geopolitical knowledge and analyses as in depth as they are there anywhere on the lib spaces. So I stayed, 3 years later and my position kept getting reaffirmed and reaffirmed by your kind.

                    A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish. The words really refer to existing entities and geographies, but Westerners aren’t familiar with them. The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” […] This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China […] it’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.

                    What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for an environment in which no other course of action seems viable. Cognitive dissonance, the kind that eventually spurs one into becoming intolerant of the status quo and into action, is initially unpleasant and scary for everybody. In this way, we can begin to understand the benefit that “victims” of propaganda derive from carelessly “spreading awareness.” Their efforts feed an ambient propaganda haze of controversy and scandal and wariness that suffocates any painful optimism (or jealousy) and ensuing sense of duty one might otherwise feel from a casual glance at the amazing things happening elsewhere. People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.

                    from https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

                    more about the background of the atrocity propaganda from xinjiang https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/

                    https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/allegations-of-shackled-students-and-gang-rape-inside-china-s-detention-camps

                    let me tell you right now before you go through the trouble of digging up more sources that I don’t consider anything that Adrian Zenz has touched to be credible. The guy believes he is on a mission from god to destroy communism.