China is running hundreds of detention centres in northwest Xinjiang across a network that is much bigger than previously thought, according to research presented Thursday by an Australian think tank.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said it had identified more than 380 "suspected detention facilities" in the region, where China is believed to have held more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking residents.

The number of facilities is around 40 percent greater than previous estimates, the research said, and has been growing despite China's claims that many Uighurs have been released.

Using satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts, media reports and official construction tender documents, the institute said "at least 61 detention sites have seen new construction and expansion work between July 2019 and July 2020".

Fourteen more facilities were under construction in 2020 and around 70 have had fencing or perimeter walls removed, indicating their use has changed or they have been closed.

Beijing on Thursday again denied the existence of detention sites. The government says they are vocational training centres used to counter extremism.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called ASPI "the vanguard of anti-China forces whose academic credibility is seriously questionable".

US lawmakers recently voted to ban imports from Xinjiang, citing the alleged use of systematic forced labour.

Beijing recently published a white paper defending its policies in Xinjiang, where it says training programmes, work schemes and better education mean life has improved.

It claims to have given "training sessions" to an average of 1.29 million workers each year between 2014 and 2019.

Following the publication of the ASPI report, the Chinese government-controlled nationalist tabloid Global Times cited "sources" as saying contributors Clive Hamilton and Alex Joske were banned from entering China.

Wang did not confirm if the two academics had been banned on Thursday, but said the matter was "totally within the scope of China's sovereignty".

Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang demolished in recent years: report
Beijing (AFP) Sept 25, 2020 - Chinese authorities have demolished thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, an Australian think tank said Friday, in the latest report of widespread human rights abuses in the restive region.

Rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people have been incarcerated in camps across the northwestern territory, with residents pressured to give up traditional and religious activities.

Around 16,000 mosques had been destroyed or damaged, according to an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report based on satellite imagery documenting hundreds of sacred sites and statistical modelling.

Most of the destruction had taken place in the last three years and an estimated 8,500 mosques had been completely destroyed, the report said, with more damage outside the urban centres of Urumqi and Kashgar.

Many mosques that escaped demolition had their domes and minarets removed, according to the research, which estimated fewer than 15,500 intact and damaged mosques were left standing around Xinjiang.

If correct, it would be the lowest number of Muslim houses of worship in the region since the decade of national upheaval sparked by the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

By contrast, none of the Christian churches and Buddhist temples in Xinjiang that were studied by the think tank had been damaged or destroyed.

ASPI also said nearly a third of major Islamic sacred sites in Xinjiang -- including shrines, cemeteries and pilgrimage routes -- had been razed.

An AFP investigation last year found dozens of cemeteries had been destroyed in the region, leaving human remains and bricks from broken tombs scattered across the land.

China has insisted that residents of Xinjiang enjoy full religious freedom.

Asked about the research on Friday, China's foreign ministry said the research institute had "no academic credibility" and was producing "anti-China reports and anti-China lies".

Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said there were about 24,000 mosques in the region.

"Xinjiang's total number of mosques is more than ten times the number in the US, and the average number of mosques per Muslim person is higher than in some Muslim countries," Wang told a regular press briefing.

Friday's report comes a day after ASPI said it had identified a network of detention centres in the region much larger than previous estimates.

Beijing has said its network of camps are vocational training centres, which are necessary for countering poverty and anti-extremism.

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China decries US 'lie' over Xinjiang imports ban
Beijing (AFP) Sept 23, 2020
Beijing hit back Wednesday at a US move to ban imports from China's northwestern Xinjiang region over claims of forced labour, bemoaning a "fabricated lie" it says is intended to hurt Chinese business. The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in favour of the ban over claims of systematic forced labour in Xinjiang, where activists say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people have been incarcerated in camps. Beijing reacted angrily over t ... read more