BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WBNG) -- A Chinese whistleblower who documented what he believes are concentration camps in China’s Xinjiang region has been granted asylum and released from the Broome County Correctional Facility after months of detention.
Guan Heng, who now prefers to be called Francis, fled China after using a camera to document facilities he suspected were concentration camps targeting Uyghur people, a Muslim minority. He was taken into custody by federal immigration enforcement in 2025.
“I’m so happy to be free again, and I’m so glad to see people who helped a lot. They showed me the warmth of American society,” Heng said.
In 2020, Heng read a report about the persecution of Uyghur people in China’s Xinjiang region and decided to become a witness. He documented what he suspected were concentration camps in a 20-minute video posted on YouTube, capturing facilities not listed on public maps but visible on satellite imagery.
“Some of them are just jails and prisons, but some of them have no name, but are heavily guarded with walls and guard towers. I thought these facilities were concentration camps,” Heng said.
Knowing it wasn’t safe to publish his findings in China, Heng fled to the Bahamas and eventually sailed to Florida with no prior boating experience. He lived quietly in New York City and later Albany until ICE arrested him in Schenectady because he didn’t have proper immigration documentation.
Heng was first held at a federal detention facility in Batavia...
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