China’s Communist Party investigates ex-Xinjiang leader Ma Xingrui : NPR
BANGKOK — The Chinese Communist Party’s disciplinary body said Friday it has placed Xinjiang’s former party chief under investigation for alleged violations of discipline and law.
Ma
It is unclear what violations Ma allegedly committed. Ma is the latest senior official to be removed from power this year. China’s Xi Jinping removed the country’s top military general in January.
Ma was replaced by Chen Xiaojiang last July as party leader of Xinjiang, a region that has become internationally notorious for its years-long campaign of extrajudicial detentions.
China has arrested a million or more minorities, including Uighur Muslims, saying it was in response to a series of attacks by a small number of Uighur extremists.
In 2021, when Ma became secretary, China said it had closed most detention centers. But at least some camps have been transformed into prison-like centers, and information leaked to the AP showed that thousands of Uyghurs were thrown into prison with lengthy sentences based on what experts called trumped-up charges.
In March, China passed a law that experts say cements its assimilationist approach toward its ethnic minority groups, building on years of policy changes at the provincial level in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
