The Xinjiang Victims Database is a database which attempts to record all currently known individuals who are detained in Xinjiang internment camps in China.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} The database has documented over 16,000 victims.^[7] It was founded by Gene Bunin,^[8][9][10] who started the database in September 2018.^[11][12]

The database contains the names and biographical details of people who are thought to be detained in the camps. Many of the profiles also contain personal testimonies by the families and friends of the detainees.^[11][13]

Origin

Gene Bunin is a Russian-American linguistic researcher, who lived in Xinjiang until 2018, when Chinese police forced him to leave. He created the database to “have one place" to store detailed information of people interred in prison camps or disappeared after only "limited attempts" had been made to identify detainees.^[13]

Image sourcing controversy

In January 2023, following a database's post on Twitter regarding the addition of a large number of police officers to its "Accountability" section, internet users noted that images of two of the Xinjiang police officers were those of Hong Kong actors Andy Lau Tak-wah and Chow Yun-fat. Soon after it drew attention on social media, the Xinjiang Victims Database added a clarification^[14] stating that the data were sourced from a file cache of an Urumqi database previously written about in The Intercept, with the police officers occasionally using avatars that were not photos of themselves, including that of Andy Lau, which had not been noticed by the database staff. The photos assigned to police officer profiles also contained a cartoon portrait of police officer Jin Xiaowei, believed to be his likeness,^[15] which was also criticized in Chinese media.^[16]