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tv   Our World  BBC News  December 2, 2018 9:30pm-10:01pm GMT

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this is bbc world news, the headlines: a conference aimed at securing new commmitments to cutting carbon emissions has opened in the polish city of katowice. the united nations climate chief told delegates the threat posed to humanity from climate change has "never been worse". president macron's government has promised tough action against anyone who resorted to violence during anti—government protests on saturday. more than 350 people were arrested during some of the worst riots in paris for decades. the fashion group, ted baker, says there will be an independent investigation into allegations of "forced hugging" by its chief executive, ray kelvin. the announcement follows an online campaign in which anonymous staff accuse mr kelvin of harassment. a british couple has come forward to reclaim an engagment ring dropped down a grate in a times square marriage proposal. the new york police department appealed for help to locate the couple after retrieving the ring. at 10pm, mishal husain will be here with a full
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round up of the day's news. first, it's our world — an investigation into the special chinese ‘vocational schools', where as many as a million muslims are said to be detained. look at this. wow. this is the story of a search... it's like a city. we're not being allowed to get this close to it at all. ..for something china doesn't want us to find. it is a story of broken families... ..broken faith... ..and thousands of missing muslims. satellites do see beyond what the human eye can see. and it is the story of the new evidence we found, despite the attempts to stop us. xinjiang, china's vast far—west,
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is a place of beauty, and fear. checkpoints control the desert highways, and the region's towns and cities bristle with security. but there is something here they don't want the world to see. so it is 8:30am in the morning now, and we have just arrived
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in this city. and straightaway, as we left the train station, we've got one, two, and another one back there — three cars following us. we're here to look for evidence of the network of camps in which china is reported to be detaining hundreds of thousands of muslims. huge fences all around it, look. high in these blue steel walls, in a former school, is what china calls a re—education centre, but it looks more like a prison. nearby, we find another. police station every few yards. outside, relatives queue up to visit. but any attempt to get out and film is quickly interrupted.
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so this is as close as we're being allowed to get to one of these centres. well, it seems we're not being allowed to get this close to it at all. so, for our investigation, we are turning to images that china can't so easily block — satellite photos. last year, the school behind the blue fence had a football pitch. today, it's covered with what look like accommodation blocks. watchtowers are visible. on a cornerjust outside the camp tents, we try to speak to a family. what are you guys doing here? some officials try to stop us filming. but another intervenes. let them speak, she says. i ask who they are visiting.
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my dad, he says. your dad is in there. can we ask some questions? xinjiang's main muslim minority are known as the uighurs. their distinct identity and faith, and the history of separatism, has long made them a target of suspicion. now, we find many homes locked and deserted. estimates suggest as many as a million people may now be in the re—education camps. official notices say the missing are being looked after. but no—one dares to speak. the constant monitoring and following sees to that. some uighurs, though,
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have found a place of refuge in turkey, a place with ties of language and faith. just reciting an islamic verse was enough, this man says, to put him in a re—education camp. his family, he fears, is still in one. in general, how did the guards treat the people inside?
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some of those we meet are too afraid, even here in turkey, to speak openly. this man says he was also put in a camp because of his religion. from three former inmates in three different camps,
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we hear three similar accounts, and all are concerned about the fate of relatives they have left behind. the whole family. tell me about life there. what was the routine? those we have spoken to are the lucky ones. they fled to turkey in 2015. since then, there are very few reports of anyone being released from the camps at all. the testimony we have heard here is impossible to independently verify, of course, but what is striking are the consistencies — the descriptions of the routines in the camps, the brainwashing techniques, and most tellingly, perhaps, the results. not love and loyalty for the chinese communist party,
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but a deep and lasting resentment. china denies it is incarcerating muslims en masse, but state—run tv has been showing this footage — apparently willing adults, in bright, clean classrooms being taught about the pitfalls of religious extremism. the message is clear. these are not detention centres, but vocational schools. in the old silk road city of kashgar, the government presents us with a tour guide. our minders lurk a short way off,
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monitoring the conversation. but we've seen notices on the door saying some people's relatives are being looked after. what does that mean? does it mean they've been taken away? nearby, chinese tourists are taking pictures of kashgar‘s main mosque. it has fallen silent with no sign of prayer. anywhere else in the world, you'd expect the central city mosque
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like this one to be busy, bustling with worshippers. innermost thoughts must now be hidden. the mildest expression of islamic belief is at risk. beyond the veneer of normality, the ever—growing camps await.
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as we arrive in the town of dabancheng, we are being followed as usual. we are looking for evidence of the huge network of re—education camps that china is building across its western region of xinjiang. and we are using satellite photos to help us. in 2015, this patch of desertjust outside dabancheng was empty. less than three years later, it looked like this. the giant compound is surrounded by a high wall with 16 watchtowers.
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we try to approach the site by car. look at this. it is being extended on a massive scale. it's like a city. but then, the police block our way. so here we are, just a few metres from the camp and as predicted, we've been stopped. if this really is all about education, then why the effort to stop us getting close? it's huge. we ask a team of satellite analysts to help us understand what we found. taking the original image from april this year, they overlap much more recent image. more than double. it's clear how much the site has grown. the team is also able to show
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that this one camp as part of something much bigger, by identifying many other similar secure facilities right across xinjiang. plotting their growth over time shows just how fast they are being built. satellites see beyond what the human eye can see. as the years pass, we have detected the number of infrastructures being built, it increases and most significantly in the past two years. design experts give us their analysis of the layout of the giant camp at dabancheng. male accommodation and female accommodation, administration buildings, even an isolation unit. it could now be one of the biggest detention facilities in the world. holding 11,000 inmates single rooms were used and as many as 130,000
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if the inmates were housed in dormitories. ethnic tension fuelled by resentment towards chinese rule has claimed hundreds of lives in xinjiang. in recent years, the violence has shown signs of spreading. this attack in beijing's tiananmen square killed two pedestrians. hundreds of uighurs are reported to have travelled to syria to join various militant groups. the camps are a direct response. a giant system in city after city,
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town after town and, for the detention of religious believers and, it seems, anyone with an overseas connection ofany kind. the chinese government, they want to delete the uighur nation from the walls, they want we raise this nation. raila is a british uighur living in london. last year, her mother came to visit but soon after she returned to xinjiang, she was taken away. her 66—year—old mother is now thought to be in a camp, proof, her daughter says, ofjust how wide china's definition of extremism now is. as far as i know, they are targeting everybody, who has relatives abroad. just targeting each and every one.
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i'm just a normal person. i am a student looking after my son. why are they detaining my mum, for what? for no reason. i don't know when i'm going to hear the voice. mahmud is another british uighur who's watched helplessly as family members back home disappear. i'm just hoping they are alive, that is my first stop my sister is in prison. she was a tv presenter and she was the government employee.
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she had done nothing wrong. she is innocent. we are like an egg. the chinese government is like a stone. they can crush you any time and they are so powerful. do you suspect that the international community may be scared of challenging china too hard? everybody, they don't want to lose china as a business wise. money is important but we are human. international pressure is beginning to mount. at a recent un hearing, western countries one by one expressed deep unease. we are very concerned about the treatment of ethnic minorities, including uighurs. .. translation: we recommend all re—education centres be closed in uighurareas... all detention, including mass unconstitutional... release those detained... unrestricted access to places of internment in the region... china, though, remains defiant.
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we asked the chinese government to comment on any evidence we uncovered on the ground. this field outside kashgar has been transformed into a re—education camp in less than six months. we attempt to film one of them. we are forced to leave.
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as thousands are swept up into such facilities, families are being separated. when bilkiz fled with her children, her baby daughter didn't have a passport. her father stayed behind, planning to bring her later but now he has been taken away. what is your view about what the chinese government is doing?
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re—education, vocational training, suggests something limited and temporary our evidence shows the camps in prison is being used that purpose are large—scale and seemingly permanent. the question then is when will all of this end and the history of mass incarceration offers some pretty ominous precedents. are they going to turn us back yet? we make one final attempt to visit one final camp where, we've heard, 10,000 people may be held. in front of us, the police closed the whole highway. for repair, they say. we try other routes
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but every time, at roadblock after roadblock, there is nowhere through. this takes us back to downtown. the upcoming week looking very mixed, temperatures flip—flopping d&d and it looks by the end of the new week it will turn unsettled. we start this week off on a pretty mixed note, colder air moving into the north—west corner of the country, england and wales plagued by yet another weather front for the cloud and outbreaks of rain, the colder clearer weather across northern areas will slowly migrate southwards as the day wears on, should start to see the rain
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petering out, it will take a while to clear from the south and the south—east corner of the country. another windy day across southern areas, but winds later for the north but from a chilly direction, just about double figures further south with the last of the milder air cleaning way by the evening time. as we head through monday night into tuesday a ridge of high pressure building, cold air, it will be a cold night for all of us particularly for scotland, northern ireland into northern parts of england where we could see a widespread frost and even a bit of ice for a refrain showers from the previous day. many places starting tuesday on a frosty note, largely dry with lots of sunshine. could be a lot of mist and fog around, but will clear to the mourning period and stay dry for many into the afternoon, the country holding onto the sunshine whereas england and wales sees avail of cloud moving
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from the south—west ahead of this next weather system which will bring wet and windy weather to the far south—west also a rise day with temperatures in single figures. into tuesday evening, the wet and windy weather spreading and much of england and wales as it bumps into the cold we start to see some snow falling over the high ground, the pennines and north wales. uncertainty to the northern extent of the low pressure but it looks like the majority will have cleared out during the course of wednesday morning into the north sea. bit of a hung back for east anglia and the south—east, by the time we reach the afternoon sky should brighten up and it will turn more drive remaining. across scotland and northern ireland are finding throughout wednesday, again the chilly side, temperatures rising a little with the weather front across southern areas 10—12. it turns more unsettled from thursday onwards, the heaviest of the rain across the waste but it
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will be a little bit more mild and we could see ten or 11 degrees for edinburgh and belfast and sunshine will be at a premium. now we look to the wasteful friday we think to this area of low pressure which will be a deep low possibly bringing a spell of severe deals, gusts of 70—80 mph, could be disruptive, it will send a band are pretty heavy rain across the country throughout friday and brightening into the afternoon, some and blustery showers, further pulses of rain into scotland and northern ireland, may be three mess. it will turn cooler as we head to the weekend and then beyond it looks like high pressure establishes itself across the north—west corner of europe and the british isles which will bring settled weather, sunshine, the night will be quite cool perhaps the touch of frost bite by day it should be bright with sunshine. a prominent leave campaigner says theresa may's brexit deal is not perfect — but mps should support it. with the prime ministerjust over
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a week away from a crucial parliamentary vote — cabinet minister michael gove says it can still be won.
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