02/04/21 02/04/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> you need to get vaccinated en it becomes available as quickly and expeditiously as possible throughout the country. and e reason for that is that there is the fact that permeates for ologies and that is versus cannot mutate if they don't replicate most of amy: as he was covid death toll tops 450,000,

the biden administration is attempting to ramp up its vaccination campaign to slow the spread of new coronavirus variants. we will speak to dr. wafaa el-sadr of columbia university on why the u.s. should be doing more to help supply the world with covid vaccines, just like it once did with hiv medication. then we will look at china's crackdown on uighurs and other muslim minorities in xinjiang province as reports emerge of mass rapes and sweeping surveillance. and in order to understand thcamps, the surveillance system,ll of thforms of oppreson that are going on in northwest china, we have to understand the per history, the econic drivers bind the system the w that oil and gas brout settlers into the area d howt is bringing factories into the area but uighurs work

in unfree lar conditions. they're colleing data from these peopl, new tools that -- dylan amy: we will speak to anthropologist darren byler and the uighur linguist and poet abduweli ayup, who was once detained for 15 months for running a uighur-language kindergarten in xinjiang. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. a congressional watchdog is blasting the former trump administration over its disastrous handing of the pandemic, with auditors saying they were look deeply troubled by their review of the federal government's failures. in a 346-page report, the general accounting office says 90% of its recommendations remained unimplemented just

before trump left office. the report came as the u.s. death toll from covid-19 passed 450,000, with another 3912 deaths reported on wednesday alone. centers for disease control director dr. rochelle walensky warned people should get vaccinated as soon as possible to prevent new coronavirus variants from causing a fresh surge in cases. >> we have seen declines in cases and admissions and a recent slowing of deaths. cases remain extraordinarily high. twice as high as the peak number of cases before the summer. and that continue liberation of variants that spread more easily threatens to reverse these recent trends. amy: the cdc director also says the vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe

reopening of schools. a position in astron fire from teachers unions nationwide. on wednesday, baltimore city schools announced a two-week delay to its plans to expand in person after students and parents joined teachs in a car caravan protest demanding stronger safety measures, including that all staff members be fully vaccinated. president biden's pick to become secretary of education received a warm reception on capitol hill wednesday. connecticut public schools commissioner miguel cardona told a senate committee he favors reopening schools during the pandemic with science-driven guidance from the cdc. he also pushed back at republican senator rand paul, saying transgender students should be allowed to participate in sports based on gender identity. >> so you don't have a problem with boys running in the girl track needs, split needs, you name it? you're ok with boys competing

with girls? >> i believe i answer the question. i believe school should offer the opportunity for students to engage in extra curricular activities, even if they are transgender. i think that is their right. amy: meanwhile, president biden's nominee to lead the environmental protection agency told a senate panel wednesday he would restore science and transparency at the epa while working to address the urgent threat of climate change. if confirmed, michael regan would be the first black man to lead the epa. the senate has reached a power-sharing agreement that will see democrats in the evenly-divided chamber control senate committees and set their agendas. republicans will hold an equal number of seats on each committee. democratic majority leader chuck schumer said wednesday he's ordered incoming democratic committee chairso start holding hearings on the climate crisis in preparation for passing major climate legislation from every committee. the house of representatives votes today on whether to strip

georgia republican congressmember marjorie taylor greene of her assignments on the house education and budget committees over her history of violent threats, promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, and racist, anti-muslim and anti-semitic comments. on wednesday, greene reportedly apologized for some of her past comments during a closed-door republican caucus meeting. she received a standing ovation after concluding her remarks. afterwards, house minority leader kevin mccarthy defended his decision not to take action against greene. >> i denounce all of those comments that were brought up. she came inside our conference and announced -- denounced them as well. she said she was wrong. amy: mother jones reports greene served as a moderator for a facebook page that championed

the john birch society and routinely featured death threats and bigoted attacks against democrats. greene has repeatedly claimed as shootings like sandy hook or false flag operations staged to crack down on gun rights. nbc news reports that in one 2019 interview with a gun owners group, greene mocked parkland, florida, high school shooting survivor david hogg as an "idiot" who "only talks when he is scripted." house ethics committee chair ted deutch of florida, whose district includes parkland, responded on wednesday. >> the families are still grieving, as are the communities of sandy hook and las vegas and anymore tuning. there are not wordsnd it english language to properly describe how the remarks of ms. greene makes these communities feel. they are still suffering and

they will suffer forever. amy: marjorie greene has covered execution of democratic leaders like nancy pelosi and president obama. nearly 400 congressional aides have signed a public letter calling on the senate to convict donald trump for inciting the violent mob that attacked the capitol on january 6. it's a rare case of congressional staffers publicly airing their own views. in the letter, the aides describe hiding under chairs and desks, barricading themselves in their offices, and fleeing for their lives. they're calling on senators to bar trump from ever running for office again, writing -- "our constitution only works when we believe in it and defend it. it's a shared commitment to equal justice, the rule of law, and the peaceful resolution of our differences. any person who doesn't share these beliefs has no place representing the american people, now or in the future." federal agents have arsted

ethan nordean, the self-described sergeant at arms of seattle's chapter of the far-right proud boys organization, charging him with leading the mob of rioters who attacked the capitol on january 6. cnn reports at least 11 people with ties to the proud boys have been charged in connection with the capitol insurrection. meanwhile, canada has designated the proud boys as a terrorist organization, describing it as a neo-fascist group that engages in political violence. canadian public safety minister bill blair said wednesday proud boys "espouse misogynistic, islamophobic, anti-semitic, anti-immigrant, and/or white supremacist ideologies." here in the united states, defense secretary lloyd austin convened top military and civilian leaders at the pentagon

wednesday and ordered them to stand down -- or pause operations -- to allow commanders to root out white supremacy and right-wing extremism in the ranks. in wisconsin, prosecutors have asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant for kyle rittenhouse, the 18-year-old accused of killing two people and injuring another during a black lives matter protest in kenosha last year. rittenhouse reportedly failed to inform the court of a change of address, a violation of his $2 million bond. in january, rittenhouse was photographed at a bar in wisconsin posing with alleged proud boys members and flashing a white power hand sign. rittenhouse was seen drinking beer and wearing a t-shirt that read "free as [expletive]." the u.n. warned wednesday the humanitarian situation in the northern tigray region of ethiopia could get even worse and that the rest of the country could become destabilized due to

the volatile situation. this comes a day after tigray opposition groups said at least 52,000 people have died since a conflict in the region broke out in november. some 3 million people have been displaced. meanwhile, up to 20,000 eritrean refugees in tigray are missing after two camps were destroyed. the u.n. says many werabducted and forcibly returned to eritrea. china is facing widespread condemnation following a bbc report about the mass rape and sexual torture of uighur women and other muslims detained in the province of xinjiang. the u.s. state department called the reports deeply disturbing is that any atrocities committed by china should be "met with serious consequences." more on the story later in the broadcast. we will speak with a uighur poet and teacher who was imprisoned by the chinese and tortured.

and we will also speak with an anthropologist who has investigated them as surveillance of uighurs. the international criminal court has convicted dominic ongwen, a former commander of the lord's resistance army in uganda, of war crimes and crimes against humanity. it is its first conviction of an lra leader. ongwen was himself abducted and turned into a child soldier by the rebel group before eventually becoming deputy to lra commander joseph kony. the lra was most active in uganda from the mid-1990's to 2005. the u.n. estimates the rebel group killed over 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children. a new u.n. report says nearly one third of all prisoners in afghanistan have been tortured or mistreated. the forms of torture include beatings, suffocation, electric shocks, as well reports of enforced disappearances. over half of the claims in the u.n.'s "torture report" come from kandahar province. in other news about afghanistan, a congress-appointed bipartisan

panel is advising the u.s. slow down its withdrawal from afghanistan. the panel's report says the may 1 withdrawal goal established in a 2020 agreement between the u.s. and taliban forces could lead to more unrest and potentially a civil war. climate activists in france celebrated a historic victory this week after a court ruled the french state failed to take necessary action to fight the climate catastrophe. the case was brought by four environmental groups and backed by over 2 million people through an online petition. the french state was ordered to pay a symbolic one euro to each of the four groups while the court reviews other potential steps president emmanuel macron's government might be asked to take. the u.s. has extended the new strategic arms reduction treaty, or new start, with russia -- the only remaining nuclear treaty between the two countries, which was set to expire on friday. the agreement limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for each country as a

deterrent to a new arms race and nuclear war. the biden administration reaffirmed its recognition of venezuelan opposition leader juan guaido as the country's president, ruling out talks with president nicolas maduro, who was elected by the venezuelan people. this is state department spokesperson ned price. >> i would expect that our dialogue will be with our like-minded allies and partners, as well as with the national assembly juan guaido is a leader chosen by the national assembly. i would not expect any direct contact with maduro, who we consider to be a dictator. amy: the biden administration has said it will continue to impose sanctions on venezuela, which have crippled the economy. the center for economic and policy research estimates as many as 40,000 venezuelans have died due to sanctions. in columbus ohio, former police officer adam coy was arrested

and charged with murder for the fatal shooting of 47-year-old andre hill an african-american man. while responding to a nonemergency call in december, then-officer coy, who is white, opened fire just seconds after encountering hill, who was unarmed. officer coy was not using his body camera properly at the time and he failed to administer aid to hill for several minutes as hill lay dying. a damning new report by the groups no more deaths and human rights coalition finds that border patrol agents systematically ignore and dismiss reports of missing migrants and obstruct efforts by families and humanitarian groups to assist or find migrants in the harsh arizona desert. this is parker deighan, who works with no more deaths and is one of the authors of the report. >> the agency's systematic neglect of people in distress,

constitutes as a state crime. we do not advocate for the improvement, expansion, reform of border patrol's humanitarian initiatives but call for an immediate into border patrol's role as primary responder reported emergencies and in the water land. amy: the group humane borders found 2020 was the deadliest year for migrants crossing the border into arizona at non-official ports of entry. the group says remains of 227 migrants were found on the border. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. when we come back, we will speak to dr. wafaa el-sadr on why the u.s. should be doing more to help supply the world with covid vaccines just like it once did with hiv medications. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "union maid" by anne feeney. the legendary pittsburgh folk singer died of covid at the age of 69. she died with family and friends at her side. her song "have you been to jail for justice" is featured in the documentary "this is what democracy looks like" about the protest that shut down the meeting of the world trade organization's summit in seattle, washington, in 1999. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined remotely by my co-host nermeen shaikh. nermeen: welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: the u.s. death toll from

covid-19 has passed 450,000. over 3900 people died of the disease just wednesday alone. in another major milestone, data gathered by the covid tracking project shows vaccinations in the united states have eclipsed thnumber of people who have been infected with the coronavirus. more than 27 million have received a first shot and nearly 6 million have been given both vaccine doses. this comes the biden administration says it still expects to reach its target of 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days, and the number of deaths and people hospitalized continues to fall. but the centers for disease control and prevention director, dr. rochelle walensky, warned new covid-19 variants may wednesday reverse this trend. >> although we have seen declines in admissions and reese's london debts, cases

remain extraordinarily high. still twice as high as the peak number of cases over the summer. and the continued proliferation of variants, variants that likely have increased transmissibility that spreads more easily, threatens to reverse these trends. amy: as multiple new strains of the coronavirus spread across the united states, the government's top infectious-disease expert dr. anthony fauci said monday people must be vaccinated as quickly as possible to stop more mutations from emerging. >> we need to get vaccinated when it becomes available as quickly and expeditiously as possible throughout the country. and the ason for that is that there is a fact that permeates virology and that is that viruses cannot mutate if they don't replicate. amy: this comes as health experts warn any vaccination progress in the united states

will be threatened without global vaccine equity. for more, we are joined by dr. wafaa el-sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at the columbia mailman school of public health and director of icap at columbia university. she recently co-authored an op-ed in "the new york times" headlined "the world is desperate for more covid vaccines" that argues, " decades two ago, the u.s. launched a program to help supply the world with hiv medication. it should take a similar approach to covid." welcome to democracy now! i wanted to start with this watershed moment that we are in facing the race between the vaccines and the virus. exain what is happening. >> first of all, thank you very much for having me today. i think we are exactly at this watershed moment because what we

have is the potential for garnering the benefits of the vacces. at the same time, we are seeing the growth in terms of the numbers of new covid cases, as well ashe identification of these new variants, new mutations in the virus that potentially could threaten the effectiveness of even our vaccines. so i think what this means is we have to do two things at the same time. we need to as quickly as possible expand access to the vaccines, both in this country as well as around the world. that is number one. number two, we must continue to make every effort to stop transmission froone pers to the next because this is exactly what generates these new variants. that must continue to be done by the usual public preventative

measures we are all familiar with -- the physical distancing, masking. it is critically important, avoiding large congrations of people, avoiding socializing at this point in time. so i think we have to be working on these two pathways. scale up of vaccines locally and globally and at the same time, do everything we can to stop transmission of the virus. nermeen: dr. el-sadr, you talked about the important of vaccine access in this "new york times" op-ed where you point out it was dr. fauci himself regarding the hiv/aids virus, it was dr. fauci at the time who persuaded then president george w. bush to start but far, the president's emergency plan for aids rief that made aids/hiv medication

accessible to large numbers of people around the world, saving up to 18 million lives. what is it that your advocating the biden administration do to enable access globally to the covid vaccine in a similar way? >> yes, i think we do have this historic precedents, probably people recognize that pepfar, the global hiv program supported by the united states government, is probably one of the most successful ever foreign assistance programs that has received bipartisan support for decades now. this is a model that can be emulated at this point in time and a recognition of the fact viruses no no borders. and what happens in sub-saharan africa in regards to covid has an impact on what happens right here in our own country. the model is the importance of

prioritizing the procurement support, development of these vaccines around the world so they can actually reach the largest numbers of people possible, particularly in low and middle income countries. so it is both making available the vaccines themselves are making available the technology that supports the development of these vaccines, the same time also investing the resources to be able to support vaccination programs. we know you need the vaccine viously, but we also need to have effective, large-scale vaccination programs in order to get the benefits of these vaccines anywhere. nermeen: dr. el-sadr, you also stay in the same piece tt the mrna vaccines, which both moderna and pfizer use, are easier and faster to manufacture

than most other vaccine technologies. but of course, these vaccines are extremely difficult to transport and store given the temperatures at which they have to be kept. could you talk about what you think -- i meanthe russia vaccine has been shown to have 92% efficacy. there are other vaccines that developing countries are attempting to access, the china vaccines. how easy or difficult is a given the technologies those vaccines use to manufacture and produce and disseminate widely and quickly? >> i think in the end, we're going to need to really a mix of different types of vaccines. it depends on the setting. there are some settings where it is quite feasible to be able to keep some of these mrna vaccines available -- freezers,

refrigerators and so on. and other settings where he will be difficult because of the lack of these kinds of resources. in the end, i think it will depend on the setting and the locati within different countries and someone. so i do think we need to be flexible. we need to be cognizant of the realities on the ground. and do e very best that we can to enable that in the end, countriewould ha different options that they can seek whatever option fits best within the reality and fits best within their own context. i think there's not going to be one answer, but i think there needs to be work on all fronts to enable ultimately that people from these countries have access to the vaccine. because it is the right thing to do but it also is in the self-interest of our own country as well. amy: dr. wafaa el-sadr, can you

address the issue of those concerned about the vaccine? a new study has come out today from monmouth university that says in the united states, maybe half the people plan to get vaccinated as soon as they can, but a quarter say they never will. we see very little information about negative side effects of these vaccines, though millions have gotten them. would it help people to believe more in the vaccine if we heard about the thousands of -- well, complaints and concerns that people have with the vaccine? >> absolutely. i think we are all very ash as public health professionals and searchers, we're very concerned about what has been called vaccine hesitancy, which is -- could be simply people don't have the accurate information about the vaccine itself. so that is very important, just disseminating information about

the vaccine and how it was developed and what it does and does not do. i think another aspect of presidency is because -- hesitancy is because of a legacy of mistrust among groups of publish in the global populations in terms of distress but government, mistrust of research. for that we need to engage individuals from these same communities, trusted messengers, trusted champions who can talk to their peers about what the vaccines do and do not do. we also need at the same time to share information as information arises in terms of side effects from these vaccines and the magnitude of such side effects. i think it is important to transmit the information, thinking about what are the best channels for transmitting the information. and very important as been very

transparent about the information that we have. we are fortunate thus far with the vaccines i which we the results have been, first of all, remarkably effective. they were. and also have been remarkably safe. the safety profile has been very comforting. amy: why do you think it is that perhaps up to one third of health care professionals say they will not take the vaccine? that it does not inspire confidence? what is the reason? >> there are multiple reasons for this. i think, again, health care workers are also part of our society, our community. there are many people from certain subsets of our community, particularly among african-americans for example, hispanics, latinx populations in this country, because of the legacies i mentioned, the legacy of mistrust and prior abuses in

research are leery of anything that comes from the government, including these very valuable vaccines. i think it is going to take a lot of work for us to be able to gain that trust and keep sharing information. but most importantly, beyond the knowledge is really reaching people from the same communities who can then talk about their own experience and why they vaccinated and then demonstrate to others that it is in their interest and the interest of their families and communities to be vaccinated. it is not going to happen overnight, but we need to be working on this very diligently, engaging with theommunities that have the fear of these vaccines so we can gain their ust. it will take a lot of work, a lot of partnerships, a lot of commitment, and being willing to listen to the concerns and answer their concerns. nermeen: dr. el-sadr, as i am

sure you are aware, vaccine hesitancy not just a problem in the u.s. but also across the world. france has one of the highest rates, but also places like south africa and kuwait. can you talk about how the white use of vaccination -- views of vaccinations change in this way and what implications are if large numbers of people or even significant numbers of people around the world refuse the vaccine wh it is made available to them? >> i think that is an issue globally of great concern. like you said, it is not just in the u.s. it is in almost every corner of the globe. when you think about, we ask individuals, there are people who are ready and willing to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible. they are going to be at the front of the line. they are convinced, ready to act. on the other extreme are people

who simply don't believe in vaccines for a variety of reasons. and then most peop are somewhere in the middle.

be doing this in the u.s. as well as around the world. i think i need this day and age, it is particularly important to do this very actively because of social media and the ability to disseminate sometimes erroneous information about side effects of vaccines. i think we need to be very nimble to be able to respond to some of these erroneous suggests. amy: dr. el-sadr, i want to ask about the united states cdc , director, dr. rochelle walensky, speaking during a briefing with reporters wednesday about the re-opening of schools and vaccines for teachers. >> i would also say safe reopening of schools is -- vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for a safe reopening of schools. amy: president biden has said

he wants to reopen a majority of k-8 schools in his first 100 days. but during a meeting with teacher's unions last thursday, dr. fauci, director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, said it may not happen. >> that may not happen because there may be mitigating circumstances. amy: can you, dr. el-sadr, address this issue of whether parents, teachers, and kids should be concerned about in-person learning and what it means for dr. walensky to say, yes, people should go back to school en if teachers are not fully vaccinated? >> i think we have data now that there are very reassuring. since the beginning of this pandemic, there has been accumulating data that are shown again and again that transmission in schools is not the problem. it is not schools have been breeding ground for transmission

of covid-19. this has been shown in a variety of different programs around this country and around the world. for a lot of different reasons. one, we have data -- transmission from children to adults seems to be less efficient than from adults to adults. so that is important. and also the are data that have shown the rights of transmission within schools again are very limited. mo of the infections amongst teachers and so on and other school personnel have been acquired in the community, not acquired in the schools themselves. so the most important thing is to make sure the schools are safe, and that means paying attention to ventilation, to spacing between the students, to face coverings if they are of the right age and can wear a mask. and i think we have the evidence the says this has kept our schools as a safe environment.

certainly, again, teachers who are involved in in-classroom instruction, they are part of the group that is eligible to get vaccinated. again, the data overall are quite reassuring about the situation itself of covid in schools, even without the vaccines. so the vaccine can be an added protective measure, but it is not necessary to restrict return to school until not just teachers, but every staff person at a school is vaccinated. amy: amy: dr. el-sadr, iq for joining us. we will link to your piece in "the new york times" "the world is desperate for more covid vaccines." but when we come back, we will look at the crack down on uighur s in province.

stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "dark eyes" by lila downs, and to see her latest performance in our studio, go to [applause] democracynow.org. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. china is facing widespread condemnation following a bbc report about the mass rape and sexual torture of uighur women and other muslims detained in the province of xinjiang. several former prisoners spoke on camera to the bbc's matthew hill. a warning to our audience, these clips contain disturbing descriptions of sexual abuse. >> reliving the sry she can barely bring herself to tell. she was held at one of xinjiang 's so-called reeducation camps. these satellite images show the site where she says she was held sharing a cell with 13 other

women with buckefor a toilet. she is haunted by one image, masked men coming down a camcorder like this one after midnight. >> they were three men, not one. three. they did whaver their mind could think of and they did not spare any part of my body. to the extent it was disgusting to look at. they did not just rape, they were barbaric. they had beaten all over my body. amy: another woman interviewed by the bbc admitted to playing a role in the mass rapes of detained women in xinjiang province. >> some talk of having to choose between punisent or been

mplicit in these crimes. >> i work six months as a cleaning wker for e women. chinese men would pay money for the pretty young inmates. >> this was the first time she is told anyone the full extent of what she says she was forced to do. >> my job is to remove their clothing and then handcuffed them otheireds sohey cannot move. amy: china claimed the bbc report was "wholly without factual basis." meanwhile, "the intercept" has obtained a massive police surveillance database used by the chinese government to monitor the residents xinjiang. the database confirms china collects millions of text messages, phone contacts, and call records, as well as

biometric data, from muslim minorities in xinjiang. information collected is used to decide who to detain. china has admitted it runs a series of what it calls "free vocational training" centers but critics have likened them to internment camps. in january, the outgoing trump administration accused china of carrying out genocide and halted the importation of cotton and tomatoes from xinjiang. president joe biden's secretary of state tony blinkin has agreed with that assessment. to talk more about the crackdown in xinjiang, we are joined by two guests. abduweli ayup is a uighur linguist and poet. he was detained for 15 months for running a uighur-language kindergarten in xinjiang. he is joining us from bergen in norway. and joining us from seattle, washington, is darren byler, an anthropologist at the university of colorado. he is the author of two forthcoming books, one on uighurs and one on technologies of re-education in china and around the world.

darren byler, if we could begin with you. this massive database that has been unveiled as china refuses to admit this total surveillance state for the muslim minority, the uighurs, in xinjiang. explain what we have learned and how they are surveilling the population. >> is an honor to be here. database we have uncovered from work at the intercept is thousands of internal police documents coming from the city most of 2017-2019. what they show us at a granular level is the way muslim institutions, the mosques, the family structure, is been targeted by the surveillance regime and accompanying police force. religious activity has almost

ground to a halt completely. anyone report, 100 60 elderly people still go to the mosque but 80,000 others have stopped attending. they also talk about families being visited by government officials being placed on watch lists, particularly the families of people that have been to the camps. it is giving us a granular level ew of communities that have really been torn apart, people that have been sent to these camps. a ranges from 10% of the population to hire. it is devastating material showing us the extent of the damage, the way the entire society is been targeted with the program elimination and some forms of replacement, a kind of colonial regime. nermeen: abduweli ayup, one of the most disturbing revelations in this bbc report about the

torture and sexual abuse of detainees in these internment camps in xinjiang is that uighur detainees themselves come as we just heard in the clip we played, that detainees themselves were forced to play a role in the mass rapes. now, you are held -- you were arrested and held for 15 months between 2013-2014. could you explain what you witnessed and what you were accused of, why you were arrested? >> i was arrested because i had the motherly which kindergarten. because of my motherland which kindergarten, i was arrested and then detained 15 months. during that time, i faced incredible brutal conditions.

disturbing and torture of electric shock with humiliation point announce of religion -- like during that time, spring festival, chinese spring festival, we have to eat dumplings. at the time i suspect what is in sight -- inside. i asked what was inside and then i was punished. i was chained for seven days. i think what is happening there is inhumane. the target is the uighu because of their religion and their culture. the government, the main --

forced them to denounce the ribbon, forced them to denounce their language and cultural practice. nermeen: could you talk about the facthe chinese government has been accused of both commitng cultul genocide but also profiti from the forced labor of mostly relious minority communities, coected to western supply chain and consumers, particularly in xinjiang's role of producing over 80% of china's cotton and also t region being rich in other natural resources as you said earlier, including natural gas and oil? >> we have to go back to the 1990's and 2000 when china was opened up to the west, becoming a manufacture for the world and had a real need to obtain raw

materials like oil and natural gas, cotton, eventually tomatoes from this region. the uighur region is the size of alaska has around 20% of chinese oil and natural gas. so in the 1990's and 2000, they began to send settlers into the south part of the region to begin to extract those resources. your kind of sing a sort of classic internal colony that is being used by the nation. over tim antagonismeveloped between the local populations in southern xinjiang between them and those settlers. because the settlers begin to take over the institutions, the cost-of-living began to rise, so there was protests overland being taken, police brutality at the protests and more protests that turn into a cycle of

violence. the 2000 rhetoric of terrorism entered the discussion following 9/11 here in the u.s., and that w then attached to this uighur population. because they're muslim. most of the conflict really had nothing to do with the religious practice, it was about injustice. moving forward into the present, as this cap system has been built out a way of targeting and transforming the population, in order to integrate them they felt they needed to retrain them to teach them not to practice islam and to speak chinese, that program has now been accompanied by a factory regime that takes advantage of the industrial scale of agriculture that has been developed, along with the settlement of southern xinjiang. and it begins to produce textiles for the world. 25% or so of cotton comes from

china, so it means it is very difficult to buy products that don't have this cotton in them. sometimes it is just simply groaned in the region and sometimes the final pduct is been produced in the region. but factories themselves are associated with the camps or in some cases their nearby the camps. the workers that are sent into these spaces have no choice but to go. if they refuse, they are labeled extremists and sent to the camps. the threat of cancer holding people in place, along with the other -- with all of the surveillance systems that are monitoring all of their movements. amy: b professoryler you wrote a piece headlined "why are u.s. companies buying tech from chinese firms that spy on muslims?" can you name the companies that are involved? >> there are around 1400 firms

that are working in xinjiang to build the digital enclosure system, doing different tasks within a system. i will name a few. the largest companies in china, those deeply invested in the situation, there the camera companies, software companies. two of the largest camera manufacturers in the world. the op-ed you mentioned talked about one of them, how amazon and ibm are buying these cameras from one of these companies in order to begin to track coronavirus here in the u.s.. other companies like mugs the e,2, artificial intelligence companies and now sometimes building cameras, are also involved in a situation. they're making component parts of things we might by committee made in china.

muggsie's partner to do the software recognition -- face recognition software, you know how you can scan your face and it opens the phone for you. lots of applications that come out of the surveillance systems that are built in xinjiang and become these other products and other locations. we have to be careful if we want to be ethical consumers in being sure the companies we are buying things from are not also participating in the sort of genocidal violence in china. nermeen: abduweli ayup, you're working on writing a memoir of your time in prison. could you tell us a little bit about that, what is it that you document about your experience in the prisons? what conditions were like? whether you are able to speak to other prisoners while you were there? and what you witnessed and

learned about what happen happening and what continues to happen in these camps? >> yes, i almost finished my book. because i stayed in cash car detention center, and then three different detention centers, so i am very familiar with those detention systems. in my book i talked about what kinds of torture in interrogation room. second,hat is happening in the cells. and the third is what the torture methods in the cell and what the guards' methods to

force prisoners to confess and how the system works in the detention centers. i describe it from beginning to the end, that 15 months. especially i focus on grds and prisoners relationships and the interrogation. for example, guards help the interrogation. there's a competition between interrogators and the guards. and if the guards get the confess, he will be promoted. if the interrogator gets the confess, that will have a

promotion. in the case, two kinds of guys are competing to force prisoners to confess. in my book, i describe for example prison guards use drugs and sexual abuse to confess, force prisoners to confess to tell what they want. in detention system, the guards and the interrogators, mainly focus on confession. they want the people were living there to tell "we are criminals and we are probably makers." they don't want any details. yes, they force people to answer yes or no.

the story has already been made up. the game they're playing is yes or no. amy: abduweli ayup, if you can tell us how you ultimately left xinjiang, how you got out of the country -- we are talking to you in norway now -- what has happened to our family and how they used cell phones integral to monitoring everything people do? gathering information from those funds, requiring that you have them? >> yes, after i was released from the camps, i faced a big problem that i have to keep my cell phone on 24 hours. if i visit my friends -- because we are together and i was ready blacklisted, my friends become a blacklisted pern. in that case, my friend was in

danger. so i lived in the surveillance system and it is not possible for me to live further. that is why i escaped the country. because of the surveillance. nermeen: in addition to the surveillance carried out on uighurs in china, there have been reports that the chinese government is also tracking uighurs living outside. are you concerned about your own safety, and do you still have family in xinjiang or anywhere else in china? >> yes, we are still -- we are under the pressure. at the time, they asked me to download -- [indiscernible] call me immediately, "we are

watching you and what are you doing and what are you working on, we know clearly." it is psychological pressure. i am living -- about 20 uighurs in oslo. we are under pressure right now. amy: abduweli ayup, thank you for joining us on democracy now! , tell your own life experience, uighur linguist who set up a -- we set up a kindergarten and was imprisoned for 15 months. thank you for being with us. darren byler is an anthropologist at the university of colorado, speaking to us from washington. that does a forever broadcast. very happy birthday to hugh gran! democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or

mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ■/"/"/"w&w&w&w&■.■.''77

narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," the illegal lumber trade is a multi-million-dollar business spanning the globe. in the northwest united states, scientists are using innovative methods to stop lumber from entering the country, while in brazil, violent clashes have erupted at the source, where indigenous groups are trying to stop poachers from decimating their forest.