It precipitated a criminalization of Islamic practice and a number of Uyghur and Kazakh cultural traditions. Initially only religious leaders were sent to camps, but by 2017 the War on Terror became a program of preventing Uyghurs from being Muslim and, to a certain extent, from being Uyghur or Kazakh.

XREF: This connects to broader discussions of ethnic cleansing and the 'War on Terror' being repurposed for internal repression.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 555