On November 24, 2019, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a set of 2017 Chinese government documents known as the China Cables. A classified telegram signed by Zhu Hailun, then head of Xinjiang’s Political and Legal Commission, described operating procedures for between 1,300 and 1,400 detention facilities. Four intelligence bulletins linked the camps to the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), a centralized data system that used artificial intelligence and police databases to identify people for questioning or detention. One bulletin said the system flagged 1.8 million Uyghur users who had installed the Zapya file-sharing application.
The documents also reported that during one week in June 2017, IJOP identified 24,412 “suspicious” people in southern Xinjiang; 15,683 were sent to “education and training” facilities and 706 were criminally detained. A separate court record described a Uyghur man receiving a 10-year sentence for religious speech. China’s government called the documents fabricated and described Xinjiang as an internal matter, but the disclosures reinforced earlier reporting about mass detention and ethnic profiling. The European Parliament condemned the detentions in December 2019, while the United States enacted the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in June 2020, authorizing sanctions against officials including Chen Quanguo.
