Xinjiang Police Files: what's really in there? Do they prove atrocities and genocide?
Channel: Harald in China
Date: 2022-06-01

Last week, European media like Spiegel (Germany) and BBC (UK) announced a "bombshell" leak of files from Xinjiang. They know they speak to an audience, which is fully sold on the idea of a "genocide" and mass incarceration for ethnic reasons. Once people believe that, you just feed pictures and uncertainty and let readers' imagination do the rest. 
If you look at the story from a critical perspective, things change. I look at what the images are actually showing, which Germany's Spiegel publish here: 
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/xinjiang-police-files-so-haben-wir-das-datenleck-ueberprueft-a-0dc1d2e6-2771-48ab-af72-ded4aae6970b

We see how propaganda works, when the original outlet says, a police tool "can ALSO be used for torture" and the next media copying them simply claims: "this is a torture tool" https://www.blick.ch/ausland/bilder-des-grauens-brisantes-datenleck-zeigt-den-horror-der-uiguren-in-china-id17518148.html

Why you should keep a critical mind even though "all the networks" have hammered the message of torture in Xinjiang into your brain, is because some independent investigative journalists still do - luckily - fact check. And they find way too many lies and cover ups where mainstream media actively prevent you from finding the truth. Just one example her @TheNewAtlas https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dh8_yYT4wMo with other important sources being @DanielDumbrill , @thegrayzone7996 and many others.

The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence, as in the same week the high commissioner for Human Rights also visited Xinjiang. https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/05/statement-un-high-commissioner-human-rights-michelle-bachelet-after-official

To be clear: I'm not saying the images from the "Xinjiang Police Files" are fake. They are from 2017-2018 and I would bet they were in the hands of the CIA since about that time, waiting for a moment to use them, though that's pure speculation. What I'll show in the video is that these images don't show any convincing evidence other than that there's a regular prison in a city in Xinjiang, and some people were beaten - probably with a stick - on their back. That is not nice, but it isn't genocide either. In Singapore caning is still a common punishment as this article illustrates about an 11 year old boy (!) who got beaten by stick and they ask, whether it was against the law because they beat the wrong part of the body! https://theindependent.sg/11-year-old-caned-severely-on-thigh-instead-of-buttocks-did-school-break-rules/