“Amnesty International has first-hand knowledge that the Chinese authorities have detained Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims – outside any legal process – in ‘political education’ camps for their perceived disloyalty to the government and Chinese Communist Party.

“The authorities label these camps as centres for ‘transformation-through-education’ but most people refer to them simply as ‘re-education camps’.

“In those camps, they are subjected to forced political indoctrination, renunciation of their faith, mistreatment, and, in some cases, torture.

“They are hardly the ‘vocational and training institution’ that the minister seems to have visited,” said executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu, in a statement.

“Those sent to such camps are not put on trial, have no access to lawyers or the right to challenge the decision. Individuals could be left to languish in detention for months, as it is the authorities who decide when an individual has been ‘transformed’.”

According to Shamini, as of September 2018, the fate of an estimated one million people is unknown and most of the detainees’ families have been kept in the dark.

Mujahid recently led a government delegation to Xinjiang, following which he shared pictures of his visit on his Facebook page.

This mornng, Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa, of the Islamic Renaissance Front, questioned Mujahid’s use of the phrase “vocational and training institution” in his Facebook post about his recent visit to Xinjiang.

The activist took to task Mujahid over his apparent acceptance of the euphemism used by Beijing to describe its detention camp to house thousands of Muslim critics of China’s policies in Xinjiang.

“Surely Mujahid must have been a victim of the Communist China propaganda,” Farouk told FMT.