CNN’s Halloween Horror Story About Xinjiang Is Full Of Holes

OneWorld | 14-Oct-2021 | By Andrew Korybko American political analyst

Their Halloween horror story was invented in order to attract the Western audience’s attention during this scary season and then remind them of the US government’s false claims of genocide in the XUAR. It’s October, which means that many in the West are preparing to celebrate Halloween at the end of the month.

This occasion usually sees folks talking about scary things and sharing stories that are intended to frighten others, though all for the purpose of having a little bit of fun. CNN is also participating in this seasonal activity as proven by the horror story that they published last week about the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). As with everything that has to do with Halloween, it’s also fake and has nothing to do with reality. This leading Western mainstream media outlet claims to have obtained exclusive testimony from a former Chinese police detective who says that he tortured minorities in the XUAR. The alleged details are straight out of a Hollywood horror flick, complete with accusations of extreme violence, gang rape, and even murder. It’s very disturbing to read, but the story is full of holes. CNN refuses to release any evidence backing up that person’s claims, unconvincingly saying that it’s to protect their identity. Their Halloween horror story was invented in order to attract the Western audience’s attention during this scary season and then remind them of the US government’s false claims of genocide in the XUAR. It’s not unprecedented for self-interested individuals to flee their countries in order to participate in an adversarial government’s meddling campaign against their homeland in exchange for promised economic opportunities. That’s exactly what’s happening here since the alleged source cannot back up his audacious claims of crimes.

His haste to concoct the most horrific stories possible just in time for Halloween resulted in him making several glaring mistakes that disprove his story. It’s also surprising that his media partners at CNN didn’t realize this ahead of time and refined their narrative in order to account for these inconsistencies. The source says that his superior told him that “we must kill them all” in the XUAR, yet the Chinese census’ figures from this summer confirm that minority populations grew by 14.3% in 10 years in that exact same region. The next hole in his story was when he says that “Many restaurants and places are closed” in the XUAR. That’s also not true as confirmed by the many foreign diplomats who’ve visited the region to assess the veracity of the US’ genocide claims there. Video footage from the XUAR that’s routinely shared on Chinese social media also debunks this false claim. In fact, that region actually has a thriving tourism sector that’s become very popular with Chinese during the pandemic while international travel remains restricted. Everything is open, not closed. CNN’s source then spews another false claim by asserting that “it was common knowledge among police officers that 900,000 Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were detained in the region in a single year.” Not only is this figure completely unsubstantiated and therefore untrue, but it also suggests a contradiction with what the outlet reported earlier in their story when writing that “The US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.”

To explain, this implies that almost half of the alleged genocide took place in a single year, meaning that it’s presumably become less intense with time. Of course, no such genocide has ever occurred, but those who’ve been misled by this false narrative should question this inconsistency. It doesn’t make sense for the US to claim that a genocide is still occurring in the XUAR when the indexing of fake figures from CNN’s source and the State Department suggests that the number of allegedly detained minorities has actually been decreasing each year. The outlet couldn’t help but reveal the intention behind their Halloween horror story when quoting their source’s claim that he had become “disappointed” with the Communist Party of China (CPC) even before becoming a torturer due to what he says is its “corruption”. He claims that he wanted “to stand on the side of the people” by admitting to his alleged crimes against humanity that he’s curiously not being prosecuted for in the unnamed European country where CNN says he’s hiding despite supposedly sharing evidence of them.

Any objective observer should now realize that this source is a foreign intelligence asset otherwise there’s no way that he’d escape prosecution for the crimes against humanity that he claims to have shared evidence of committing. The whole point of CNN’s Halloween horror story about the XUAR is discredit the CPC and falsely make it seem like the Chinese people are against it. In reality, Chinese people of all ethnicities proudly support the CPC for successfully eliminating terrorism in the XUAR in a way that’s fully consistent with human rights.