China said it was winding down its “re-education” camps for Uighurs and other minority groups, but researchers found evidence that incarceration is on the rise. An investigation by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute showed that, rather than being released, many detainees were most likely being sent to prisons and perhaps other facilities. The researchers studied satellite images showing new and expanded detention sites.

They showed that “extrajudicial detainees” were now being “formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons,” Nathan Ruser, a researcher who led the project, wrote in the report released on Thursday. China has denied that the Uighurs have suffered human rights abuses.

By using satellite imagery, the researchers found and examined some 380 suspected detention sites in Xinjiang. At least 61 of them had expanded in area from July 2019 to July of this year, and of those, 14 were still growing.

New York Times