The 'perfect Uighur': outgoing and hard working – but still not safe from China's camps

Beijing claims its re-education camps in Xinjiang are needed to combat Islamic terrorism, but Dilara's experiences tell a different story

By the standards of Chinese officialdom, Dilara is surely the perfect minority. She doesn't wear a headscarf. She drinks beer. Pretty and outgoing, she socialises often with Chinese friends.

If you closed your eyes and heard her speak Mandarin, you would never guess she had greenish eyes and brown hair, that she isn't Han - the dominant ethnic group in China - but Uighur, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who call Xinjiang province, in the far west of China, their homeland.