BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Hello.

Hello, this is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4 with me, Tina Dehini,

a space to ask one big question about one big story.

Today, why is China locking up Muslims?

We've thought for a while now that authorities in China Xinjiang province have been keeping

Muslims in internment camps. Xinjiang is in the far west of China, bordering Central Asia, and has a majority Muslim population.

Through studying satellite images and trying to get as close as they can to the tall walls and barbed wire that surround the

camps.

BBC China correspondent John Sudworth and his producer Kathy Long have been attempting to get to the

truth of the story for months. And now for the first time

they've been allowed inside the camps. The Chinese authorities say these are

schools and the students attend voluntarily. Human rights groups say hundreds

of thousands of Muslims are detained there without trial. I sat down with John and Kathy to try and work out what really goes on inside.

The first thing to say, Tina, is that the places we were taken to see are exclusively for Muslims.

China tells us that these things are schools for Muslims to guide and

de-radicalize those affected by extremist thoughts and ultimately to allow

them to return to normal society.

On the other hand, as we know there's compelling evidence to show that over the past few years China has been building

a giant network of large, very highly secure facilities right across this vast far western

region of Xinjiang and that hundreds of thousands of

Xinjiang's Muslim groups, the Uyghurs, the Kazakhs and others, have been swept

...