Beijing - (AFP) - Leaked documents attributed to the Chinese police, including thousands of photos of detainees, including women, minors and the elderly, shed light on the situation of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

These documents were published by a group of 14 international media outlets, including the French newspaper "Le Monde", at a time when the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, begins a highly anticipated visit to this large region located in northwest China.

An anonymous source sent the documents to German researcher Adrian Zenz, who in 2018 was the first to accuse the Chinese regime of detaining more than a million Uyghurs in "political re-education centers."

Beijing has always denied the presence of this number of people in the centers, denouncing what it considers the "lie of the century" and asserting that these camps are in fact "vocational training centers" aimed at combating religious extremism, after a series of bloody attacks in the region.

However, the documents published on Tuesday show that the presence of "trainees" in these centers is not voluntary. Zenz told the BBC that the documents "destroy Chinese propaganda".

The documents include more than 2,800 identity photos of detainees, including Zeytungul Ablehit, a 17-year-old who was arrested for listening to forbidden speech, and Bilal Qasim, 16, who was apparently convicted of having relations with other prisoners.

The oldest on the list is a woman who looks thin and confused in the photo, Anihan Hamet, who was 73 years old when she was arrested.

Another image appears to show police training with guards wielding batons trying to control a person in chains.

Written documents prove the idea of organized repression from the head of the Chinese state.

A letter attributed to the Minister in Charge of Police Affairs, Zhao Kitje, in 2018 said that President Xi Jinping had ordered the expansion of detention centers.

Zhao said that at least two million residents of southern Xinjiang may be "seriously affected by the penetration of extremist ideology."

Uyghurs make up most of Xinjiang's 26 million people.

In a speech in 2017, the region's governor, Chen Guangwu, ordered guards to shoot people trying to escape and to "closely watch believers".
Beijing flatly rejected Adrian Zenz's conclusions.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday that the documents were nothing but "a recent model put forward by anti-China forces to discredit Xinjiang" and "spread lies and rumors."