The following submission is a piece written for an English project by contributing writers not involved with the Ghostwriter. This submission has not been edited except to add paragraph breaks. 

The nightmare-like hellholes, known as concentration camps, have forever plagued human history, be it the Gulag camps of the Soviet Union, North Korea’s labor camps, or the Nazis camps in World War II. Countless atrocities of the inhumanity of humanity have been committed across multifarious camps. One would hesitantly hope human beings have risen above our abhorrent history of prison camp cruelty, however, this is despairingly false. Hidden under a blanket of progressivism and shielded from the underlying ghastly nature of many other nations, most Americans know little of the detention camps in China. Why must we settle for fighting over political unrest in the states when there are egregious violations of human rights around the globe? In a nation that prides itself on the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, how many of us can remember a time when we pursued these principals for someone else?

A staggering 1.4 million innocent Muslim souls are imprisoned in a world designed to brainwash and torture their people. China hides behind false pretenses as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. However, coming from chilling eyewitness’ accounts from Muslims who have escaped the Chinese detention camps in the western region of Xinjiang, there are cracks in China’s guise. The Chinese government has responded to these leaks of information by attempting to explain their camps as re-education centers for terrorist threats. These are seemingly trivial excuses to cover up the persecution of Muslims throughout the nation.

Reports from Amnesty, a human rights organization, have offered insight into the background and mechanics of this operation. Similar tactics to those used by Hitler in his persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust are deployed to capture Muslims living in China. Officials are on constant watch in their communities for anyone who refuses to shave their beard or eat pork. Once found, Muslim families are split up. Children are taken to “re-education” camps while older Muslim’s are taken to other concentration camps. The children are brainwashed into believing that following Muslim practice is wrong and harmful. Once properly “re-educated” the children are released although there is no guarantee they will ever see their families again.

On the other hand, eyewitness accounts from the main concentration camp in Dabancheng tell of a more horrific fate for other detainees. Ablet Tursun Tohti was a 29-year-old Muslim locked away in this prison camp. He tells reporters that each morning the prisoners were forced to run in lines as exercise. Those who didn’t run fast enough were taken away into a special room. Here, prisoners were beaten with a belt by one guard while a second guard kicked the victim. Beatings such as these are regular punishments for the detainees. In addition to physical punishment day in and day out for the muslim prisoners, each day the prisoners are psychologically tortured by being forced to sing songs filled with Communistic propaganda much like the government propaganda of North Korea, as well as the forced recitation of Chinese laws. The muslim’s in the camp are beaten if they refuse to denounce their religion and follow the propaganda of their oppressors. So how is it that so few people in America have heard of these heinous crimes afflicting 1/5000 of the human race?

World leaders have turned a blind eye to this holocaust, causing a world wide ignorance of this issue. We must take action. As Thoreau mentioned in Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, “It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves”. While millions of Muslims everyday are being beaten down, we American’s focus on trivial sports rivalries or Kardashian drama. Though we may not be able to leave our homes and protest the streets of China, there are organizations we can support from home. The Uyghur Human Rights Crisis organization focuses their attention on aiding the muslims in China by spreading the word around the globe about their plight as well as fighting the Chinese government. We can donate to this organization’s cause from our homes at https://uhrp.org/news/how-lawyers-can-help-uyghur-human-rights-crisis. It is also important to continue to educate those around us of this issue. By learning about such atrocities we can ban together to prohibit individuals from being robbed of their lives, and create a better future for everyone on this Earth.