When BuzzFeed News published its 2020 expose on the scale and architecture of China’s crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the report didn’t just touch off a furor in the West. It also inspired Guan Heng (關恆) — an ordinary Chinese man who evaded China’s internet firewall to read the story — to make a daring trip across Xinjiang to see the camps for himself.
The BuzzFeed report had drawn on satellite imagery. Guan’s amateur documentary, which he posted on the internet after fleeing to the United States in 2021, provided the view from the ground: menacing gray compounds surrounded by watchtowers and concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Now, four years and 1.2 million YouTube views later, Guan is perilously close to ending up in a Chinese prison himself.
Earlier this year, Guan was living in a small town in upstate New York when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He had applied for asylum soon after arriving in the U.S. by boat from the Bahamas in 2021, but the case was still pending when ICE knocked on his door.
The case is still pending. The second hearing in his case is set for Monday, but Guan’s lawyer has said that he doesn’t expect a decision unless the authorities drop the charges. Guan’s situation appeared to have been resolved last month, when pressure from U.S. media outlets and members of Congress prompted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to abandon a plan to deport Guan to Uganda, where he may have faced extradition back...
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