Inside A Xinjiang Detention Camp

December 03, 2020

Buzzfeed Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing

As the government built, it also moved to erase a cultural landmark. By 2018, one of Mongolküre’s mosques had its dome and minarets removed and a pitched roof added instead, satellite images show. “It happened in a lot of towns,” said Zhadyra, an ethnic Kazakh woman who was born on a cattle ranch in Mongolküre County and immigrated to Kazakhstan last year. “Around that time, every house was searched, they were looking for things connected to the Islamic religion, like the holy Qur’an, even things with Arabic writing.”