ARCHIVE PHOTO: Security guards stand at the gates of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Huocheng County in Xinjiang U

EXCLUSIVE-YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forces rights group to seek alternative

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2021-06-25 19:30:08

ARCHIVE PHOTO: Security guards stand at the gates of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Huocheng County in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

June 25 (Reuters) - A human rights group that attracted millions of views on YouTube to testimonies from people who say their families have disappeared in China's Xinjiang region is moving its videos to little-known service Odysee after some were taken down by the Google-owned streaming giant, two sources told Reuters.

The group, credited by international organizations like Human Rights Watch for drawing attention to human rights violations in Xinjiang, has come under fire from Kazakh authorities since its founding in 2017.

Serikzhan Bilash, a Xinjiang-born Kazakh activist who co-founded the channel and has been arrested multiple times for his activism, said government advisors told him five years ago to stop using the word "genocide" to describe the situation in Xinjiang - an order he assumed came from pressure from China's government on Kazakhstan.

"They're just facts," Bilash said to Reuters in a phone interview, referring to the content of Atajurt's videos. "The people giving the testimonies are talking about their loved ones."