A woman prepares snacks for sale at a residential house on Liuxing Street in Yining City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 4, 2020. Liuxing Street, built in 1930s, is a well-known historical block in Yining City. Under the local authority's efforts of preserving and upgrading the historical block in recent years, the street has seen its historical style preserved and the local residents' living environment improved at the same time, thus attracting lots of tourists for sightseeing and entrepreneurs for investment. (Xinhua/Wang Fei)

A video about the truth and lies of the vocational education and training centers set up in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was aired on Monday night, allowing people from outside the region to gain an overall insight to the region’s anti-terrorism and de-radicalization measures and the changes brought to trainees amid some Western countries’ deliberate slandering. 

The video, titled Lies and Truth - Vocational education and training in Xinjiang was produced by Xinjiang Development Research Center, a Xinjiang-based think tank. It began from the source of terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang and demonstrated how terrorism and extremism haunted Xinjiang for decades, misleading many people in the region to believe that they can only go to heaven by swearing “Jihad” and killing heretics.

Patigul Yusan, a graduate from the training center in Shule county, told her story in the video. She said that she and some others went to Guangzhou, hoping to cross the border to participate in the “Jihad” from there.

Her daughter was also sent to attend illegal Koran teaching classes to learn distorted Islamic scriptures. The child was too young to recite all the scriptures and was punished by extremists, who did not let her eat or drink and eventually beat her. The little girl was subsequently beaten to death. 

Such tragedies not only happened to Patigul but also to others. With the purpose of eliminating extremism and terrorism at its root, Xinjiang set up vocational education and training centers in accordance with laws. They are education and training institutions, according to the video.

Aside from introducing the lives of the trainees in the centers, the video also demonstrated the changes brought to graduates. For example, Abaydulla Omar in Turpan has opened an E-commerce company with the help of the government after graduating from the training center. He now live-streams and promotes his products to netizens and his income can exceed 10,000 yuan ($1,445) a month.

The video offers people outside Xinjiang an overall view of the region’s anti-terrorism and de-radicalization measures.

Despite some Western countries’ refusal to admit Xinjiang’s achievements regarding anti-terrorism, many foreign journalists, experts, religious groups and visitors have been to Xinjiang, and seen the stability and prosperity of the region with their own eyes. 

Li Wei, an expert on counter-terrorism, was also cited by the video as saying that some Western countries have been maliciously publicizing human rights issues, attempting to lay a trap for Xinjiang. 

Global Times