Thousands of leaked images and police documents show members of the Uyghur population in detention in China’s Xinjiang region, under armed police guard.
Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs, as part of its crackdown on minority Islamic populations.
China says the Uyghurs are in re-education camps to free themselves of extreme views, while others have been sentenced to years in prison for charges which include listening to Islamic lectures, or travelling to certain Muslim countries.
The photos show only a small proportion of the population, about three thousand detainees.
But they are an extremely rare look inside what is a highly secretive operation, which some western nations have labelled as genocide.
The photos were taken between January and July 2018 in a small county in the region.
The youngest detainee at the time was 15, the oldest 73.
Mehmet Obul is the president of the Australian Uyghur Association.
He came to Australia as a refugee 20 years ago, but has not heard from his sisters back home in Xinjiang for six years.
He is from the same county in Xianjang where these photos have come from.
"I came from that county where there are 250,000 or 200,000 people when I was there, I tried to recognise the pictures but I couldn’t recognise everybody, It’s very disturbing...I left four sisters but I’m not sure whether all they are well because I haven’t had any contact"
China has vehemently denied allegations it is committing genocide against the Uyghur people, calling them the "lie of the century".
