YOU MIGHT HAVE noticed a lot of content about China on The Journal lately – that’s because the latest installment of The Good Information Project looked at Ireland’s relationship with the country.

That meant articles about, for example, the UN Security Council, anti-Asian abuse in Ireland, Chinese identity in Ireland, and China and GDPR.

So for this week’s podcast, we wanted to examine an issue that frequently comes up in relation to China – the treatment of the Uighur population in Xinjiang. Xinjiang is an autonomous region in China and the Uighurs are one of the ethnic groups that live there.

They are a mostly Muslim Turkic group who number about 11 million. But in recent years, there have been reports of abuse of Uighurs, and claims of internment camps in China where Uighurs are ‘reeducated’.

Today, a ‘Uyghur Tribunal’ opened in London – it’s an independent people’s tribunal set up to assess whether China’s alleged human rights abuses against Uighur people constitute genocide.

On this week’s podcast, we’re joined by Berlin-based freelance journalist Clifford Coonan, who tells us more about the Uighurs, their relationship with China, and the human rights abuse claims. 

The Explainer / SoundCloud

This episode was put together by presenter Sinéad O’Carroll, producer Aoife Barry and editor Brian Whelan of The Good Information Project. 

The Good Information Project is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.