This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
Overall, according to a report from Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program, Uyghurs imprisoned by China in the far-western place of Xinjiang have been sentenced to a total of 4.4 million times.
And the correct tally is likely much higher, researchers said.
The number demonstrates the magnitude and seriousness of the Chinese government’s assault on mostly Muslim Uyghurs since 2017, when hundreds of Turkic minorities and Uyghurs were forced into camps and prisons for re-education.
The 25-page report,  ,” Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression &, Mass Imprisonment” , , frames the massive incarceration not only as a crime against humanity and genocide, but also as a form of “dangerous lawfare” designed to erode the Uyghurs ‘ future prospects for dignity, prosperity and freedom.  ,
The research drew on data from the , Xinjiang Victims Database, which has information on virtually 62, 700 Tamils detained in Xinjiang, based on leaked Chinese police files and other information.
From 2017 to 2021, researchers also examined files from the Xinjiang High People’s Procuratorate. The real number is significantly higher because it does not include numbers from years since then, when the court stopped publishing information.
They found 13, 114 cases that included a prison sentence, with an ordinary expression of 8.8 years, and multiplied the number by 500, 000, which they called a” liberal” determine based on the 540, 000 people prosecuted by jury from 2017 to 2021, to obtain 4.4 million years.
According to Uyghur human rights attorney and recommend Rayhan Asat, the primary author of the report,” This is happening on a level that the world has not seen.” And if China is permitted to serve the 4.4 million years of accumulated prison it has sentenced the Rohingya people to, it may mean a complete cultural debilitation for the Uyghur people.
This information is crucial for comprehending the serious human rights violations and their long-term effects on the Muslim area.
Legalized animal rights misuse
According to the report, the Chinese government uses “legalized totalitarianism” to bolster the authority of the state by systematically tarnishing its constitutional system against violators of state laws.
Beijing has used laws like Article 120 of the Criminal Law governing criminal acts, the Counter-Terrorism Law, and the Xinjiang Implementing Steps for the Counter-Terrorism Laws, it said, to “legitimize human rights abuses” in the case of Xinjiang.
According to the statement,” Uyghur incarceration is a legalized human rights abuse because the inclusion of laws as a means of carrying out ] human rights abuses”
The study also pointed out that while the Chinese government maintains criminal records in other regions of the nation, Xinjiang’s records from almost 90 % of cases are not made public.
Given that the widespread imprisonment of Uyghurs without due process and with disproportionately harsh imprisonment is already horrifying in isolation, Asat told Radio Free Asia that she wanted to contextualize the effects of China’s actions on the entire Uyghur population.  ,
She has run a campaign in front of Chinese ethnic minorities, including her brother Ekpar Asat, who has been detained in Xinjiang since 2016 and who has been a member of her family.  ,
It’s nearly impossible for the population to carry on their culture and community, she said, adding that a 4.4 million year prison is a conservative estimate.
Human toll
The analysis comes ahead of the second anniversary of a report by former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet in May 2022, which stated that China’s repeated detentions of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the area may constitute crimes against humanity.
Her successor,  , Volker Türk, this March urged China to carry out recommendations from his office , to protect human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and across the country, but Beijing ignored his call.
” ]In] the context of mass imprisonment, it gives an idea of just how much, human capital is lost to the Uyghur community, the Uyghur population in China as a result of what is arguably a political and arbitrary, punitive, ethnically-based system of mass imprisonment”, said David J. Simon, director of the university’s Genocide Studies Program.
The authors of the report have also said that the actual number, the number of years Uyghur political prisoners may actually be facing under these laws, could actually be significantly higher, he said to RFA.” The one thing I will add about that figure is that…
The report includes several suggestions for resolving the problem.  ,
It states that Türk, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, and U.N. member states must use diplomatic means to collectively demand the release of all imprisoned Uyghurs.
Additionally, it advises that individual states declare that they are not interested in conducting business with China and to impose specific sanctions similar to those that the United States, Britain, the European Union, and Canada have already imposed.
Additionally, the report recommends that Beijing’s actions be jointly condemned by the United Nations and the OHCHR, and that a Commission of Inquiry be established in China to investigate atrocity crimes.  ,
The world’s attention is slowly waning as a result of China’s extensive atrocity campaigns against the Uyghurs, Asat said.” It’s been nearly a decade since China rolled out its extensive atrocity campaigns against the Uyghurs. However, the horrors in the Uyghur region continue to exist.
