On May 24, 2022, a consortium of 14 media organizations published more than 10 gigabytes of leaked Chinese government material obtained by researcher Adrian Zenz from an anonymous source. The files, reportedly taken from police and public-security computer systems in Xinjiang, included classified documents, speeches, police protocols, spreadsheets and photographs from Konasheher and Tekes. Media partners partially authenticated the material over several weeks. The records documented the detention of more than 20,000 Uyghurs and contradicted Beijing’s claim that the facilities were voluntary vocational-training centers.
The files included data on roughly 8,000 detainees in Konasheher, recommendations for more than 10,000 people to be detained or investigated through the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, and a list indicating guilt-by-association detention of relatives, including a reported 16-year-old. They also contained 5,074 mugshots taken between January and July 2018, including 15 minors, with evidence that images were prepared for facial-recognition systems. Protocols described armed guards, sniper-equipped watchtowers, shackles, blindfolds and a shoot-to-kill escape policy attributed to then-Xinjiang party secretary Chen Quanguo. China denied abuses and called the files disinformation; the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 29, 2022, that genocide and crimes against humanity were ongoing. The disclosures reinforced international scrutiny but did not themselves produce a criminal prosecution.
