A report by the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), released on Wednesday, said western tourism to the region risked supporting the normalisation of Chinese government policies that were “intended to destroy the Uyghur identity”.

lol the most famous human-rights supporting nation on earth, the united states. How’s that Guantanamo Bay detention facility doing, btw?

Most of the package holidays – often marketed as Silk Road tours – stopped in the Xinjiang cities of Turpan, Kashgar and Urumqi, and some provided “problematic” experiences including visits to the Xinjiang Regional Museum, which UHRP said contributed to the “state erasure of Uyghur history, culture and identity”, and the Id Kah mosque, which research groups say has been made largely off limits to Uyghurs for prayer.

Definitely do not go to Xinjiang and observe things for yourself. Do not talk to the locals. Do not ask anyone about anything. Trust us, bro.

I was gonna keep quoting but actually by the time I got 2/3s of the way down I realized every line of this “news article” was just basically a reprint of what UHRP claimed. No investigative attempt at verifying or validating any claim independently on the part of The Guardian. For all I know the UHRP is actually a totally stand up organization and their reports are all very good, but anything that is HQed in DC and claims to support human rights is automatically suspect in my eyes.