“Graduates” would receive a certificate after they finished the “vocational training”. Screen capture from CCTV. As international media and human rights organizations unveil details about re-education camps in Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities may have imprisoned up to a million Muslim citizens without charge, the Chinese government has switched its public relations tactics from denying to defending the camps. China's government has been under fire in the past year over allegations that it was forcibly detaining Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang for “extremist behaviour”, a language often invoked to describe any vaguely religious conduct, from growing a beard to wearing a headscarf. What happens at the camps is not widely known, but testimonies from ex-internees reveal that they were forced to convert their beliefs and pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and made to criticize their own culture and religion, as well as adopt diets against their own will. They have also reported that the camps are secured with barbed wire, surveillance systems and armed police. Initially, China's approach was to deny the existence of such camps. As recently as August 2018, shortly after a UN human rights panel brought attention to the matter, a Chinese delegation said that “there is no such thing as re-education centres in Xinjiang”. Less than two months later, the camps were made official. On October 9, the local Xinjiang government revised its “Regulation on Anti-Extremism” to empower local authorities to operate “vocational training centres” for the purpose of education and ideological conversion. In other words, the new regulation has legalized the existence of the “re-education camps”. The new strategy was almost immediately reflected on Chinese media and social networks, where many have applauded the policy. On October 16, the China Central Television aired a feature report and interviewed some “graduates” from such centre in Hotan, Xinjiang. One of them said: 我如果不來這裏的話可能我就會跟隨那些宗教極端分子走上犯罪道路。 If I had not come here, I would follow the religious extremist and become a criminal. Also on October 16, party-affiliated media outlet Global Times published an editorial stating that Xinjiang's anti-extremism measures were actually a “humanitarian move” to prevent an ethnic cleansing disaster, and should be regarded as a successful model by the rest of the world: 新疆通过加强治理避免了世界其他地方上演的各种极端情况，应被视为化解高风险局势的难得正面范例。[…]从波黑到科索沃，再到利比亚、叙利亚，悲剧故事的类型既有区别又很相似。那些地区都死了很多人，输出了大量难民。西方对那些地区的动荡过程实施了大量干预，但曾经的或者正在付出的代价却如此沉重。难道西方真的愿意新疆也出现震动世界的人道主义灾难、对外输出几十万甚至上百万难民吗？ Xinjiang has strengthened its governance to prevent extremism from happening like in other parts of the world. It should be considered a good model for resolving high-risk conflict situations. […] From Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo, and from Liberia to Syria, the tragedies are distinctive but also similar. Many people in these regions have died, many more became refugees. The West has had great influence in the unrests and have paid and are still paying the price. Does the West really want to see another humanitarian disaster that shocks the world and exports tens of thousands or even millions of refugees? A day earlier, on Twitter, Global Times’ editor-in-chief Hu Xijin claimed that the one million Muslims detainees figure was pure speculation: Chinese officials didn’t reveal the true number to avoid falling into the stats trap, giving Western media another excuse to hype up the issue. — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) October 15, 2018 The one million figure is an estimation by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, who say they have received many credible reports by international human rights organizations. Further reports have pointed to the scale of the camps as shown by satellite images, which hints at a capacity of up to a million detainees or more. A lot of people rebuffed Xijin's claim and drew attention to the fact that China doesn't allow journalists to visit the camps and objectively report on what happens in them. On the next day, Hu wrote three more tweets defending Xinjiang’s security measures: Situation in Xinjiang was out of control before. Over 1,000 violent attacks occurred in a year. But local government held back the media coverage at the time. As a result, outside world cannot understand the following measures. This is the price of insufficient press freedom. 1/3 — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) October 16, 2018 There had been such a horrific story in XJ. A road was blocked by mobs from nearby villages.They stopped all the vehicles and killed all the Han people inside.