China’s Uyghur detention camps may be the largest mass incarceration since the Holocaust

A boy wearing a blue mask with tears of blood takes part in a protest march of ethnic Uighurs asking for the European Union to call upon China to respect human rights in the Chinese Xinjiang region and ask for the closure of "re-education center" where Uighurs are detained, during a demonstration around the EU institutions in Brussels on April 27, 2018. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP) (Photo credit should read EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)

Over the last few years, a network of enormous detention camps has sprung up across China’s remote northern province of Xinjiang. According to the US State Department, the United Nations and other researchers and activists, they may hold at least a million Uighurs, a Muslim minority Beijing seems increasingly determined to strip of freedom and identity.

It is almost certainly the largest mass incarceration of a racial or religious group since the Holocaust. And it is neither front-page news nor a major part of diplomatic or political dialogue.