American families of missing Uighurs speak up at DC event

Nearly two years after the Chinese government began to detain members of Muslim minority groups in western China, a growing number of family members abroad are refusing to remain silent.

About three dozen relatives of some of the estimated 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and others being held without charge spoke out Sunday about the mass detentions at an event in Washington, DC, hoping to raise awareness of what many are calling a human rights travesty but which Beijing defends as necessary to counter violent religious extremism.

The western region of Xinjiang has been subject to a severe security crackdown in recent years that has made surveillance cameras and police checkpoints ubiquitous. The internment camps are a relatively recent phenomenon, but have expanded rapidly as a primary means of intimidation.