this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Adrian Zens is integral to the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
This is honestly pretty dismaying. This isn't meant as a put down because it is outside of your control but we've got to work on investigative literacy as a country if so many people are having a hard time doing simple stuff like this.
How is he so integral? I've looked all over their site and at a few of their reports and there's nothing about it him or his findings? Look, I'm willing to hear people out but I've looked and I can't find anything that backs up what people are claiming here so I don't think it's me that needs to work on investigative literacy.
I encourage anyone on the fence about this to do their own research. His Wikipedia article has some interesting points:
"As a result of his work on Xinjiang, Zenz has become a target for coordinated disinformation attacks from pro-Beijing and Chinese state-run media, as well as other state-affiliated entities. Zenz and his work on Xinjiang have been criticized by the Chinese government, which, according to The Globe and Mail, "has called his findings 'lies'—even when it confirmed them."
"During an interview with The Daily Telegraph published in May 2021, Zenz defended himself against allegations of fabrication, noting that 95% of documents he has analyzed are publicly available government records."
Plus his findings have been corroborated by lots of reputable reporters. I've seen a lot of claims that people need to stop believing the lies and look at the sources. I've done that and not found what they are claiming so what exactly am I missing here?
Did you google "Uyghur Human Rights Project Adrian Zenz" before replying to my previous comment?
Also did you look at who funds the org? Because it is the US government through NED through only one shell, it isnt hard to look up.
As hopefully your high school librarian has explained to you already, Wikipedia is not a good source.
Yep, I googled it and I encourage everyone else to do it too. There was nothing. I did see a few Chinese sources calling him out as fraud but nothing unbiased. I did see lots of other credible organizations backing up his findings too.
The Wikipedia article was simply a good starting point that I encouraged people to check out. There's tons of citations in there that back up their points.
Okay, here are the top Google results from my search in order
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://uhrp.org/statement/uhrp-submits-comprehensive-report-for-un-consideration-of-chinas-human-rights-record/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://uhrp.org/news/chinas-human-rights-abuses-xinjiang-and-us-response/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://uhrp.org/news/understanding-continued-persecution-chinas-uighurs/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://uhrp.org/report/mass-dentention-hotan/
The Google questions thingy
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://victimsofcommunism.org/leader/adrian-zenz-phd/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://amp.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220525-adrian-zenz-the-academic-behind-the-xinjiang-police-files-on-china-s-abuse-of-uighur
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting
The Wikipedia article on Zenz.
Did you find where Adrian was used in each of these articles? Can you tell me the extent that he is relied on by the organization, based on how he is used?
I encourage everyone to look into the links provided and see for yourself what I'm talking about. In the very first link, out of 32 citations provided, Zenz was used 4 times. I'd hardly say his research was a critical part of their research or regardless there's plenty of other sources provided if you don't like him as a source. Don't listen to all the others saying and look for yourself. There's very little to back up their reasons for dismissing everything as some kind of anti China conspiracy.
That is incredible because I intentionally made them invalid URLs. I get redirect errors when I click on them, and I assume folks who actually bother to click on them should get similar errors.
You should ask yourself why you're so committed to intellectual dishonesty.
Uhh, what? The links work perfectly fine and are not "invalid". You do get a redirect notice but that doesn't make them invalid links?
I'm not the one being intellectually dishonest here, man. I haven't even accused other people of being dishonest. I'm just saying that I looked into what people have claimed and I can't see what they are saying. People should check for themselves and I think they'll see quickly who's really spreading BS here...
You're right here actually. Some devices give a redirect warning without letting you go to the site. That's my bad.
Still, 4 of the 32 links directly reference zenz. If you read all of the links sources however, you will note that they overwhelmingly have zenz somewhere in the citations. This is why I'm not willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Because I keep telling you to vet the citations, and when you go to check, you do not properly vet the citations.
This institution is also funded by the NED (through a shell org) which is a US government tool for regime change.
Also, if 1/8th of the citations are directly from a Christian fascist why would you assume the rest are credible? Even following the logic of your shoddy research I really don't get that.
OK fair enough. I'll admit that I first didn't see any connection to Zenz at all, but then I noticed you have to click on each citation individually to see all of the sources (I assumed all the citations would be listed at the bottom so I could just search for his name and when it didn't pop up I assumed he wasn't there at all).
I fully admit that I don't have the time to look through and vet every citation (who does?) and I never claimed I checked everything. People were just claiming that Zenz was the source of all of this info and that was clearly not true based on just a quick check. Lots of this information is corroborated by lots of reputable organizations so I don't think it is appropriate to just dismiss it all.
I think at least the thing we seem to agree on is that people should do some research into this stuff themselves rather than blindly believe what everyone is shouting. I fully support that. I took a look and what I saw didn't convince me of the claims people are making here. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
Except Aria just walked you through how there were no reputable citations for this specific article.
You are assuming that there are plenty of reputable organizations that support this with quality evidence, but Im assuming this is the most in depth you've ever gone on looking at sources for claims here and all of them were not trustable.
There is evidence of a crackdown in response to terrorism(the US government funded Islamic extremist groups in the area) and some excesses from that crackdown, but every time a claim rises to the level of genocide, you're going to go back into Adrian Zenz or the state run media says lala land.
To the best of my research, the counterterrorism program is primarily focused on improving economic prospects and reassuring folks that their culture will be respected. And they have used very heavy handed methods, such as involuntarily throwing people who are only marginally connected to extremists in vocational training centers -where abuses do happen- in order to do the former. And they very much deserve to be criticized from an informed place about that. But you know what, the US would just kill them or black site them, as we've seen play out over and over again in the middle east the last 20 years, which just created even more insurgents.
I am this thorough whenever something new comes out because I care about being informed about this as China is the largest socialist project in the world and as a socialist I think its flaws need to be very carefully studied so as not to be emulated.