On May 24, 2022, an international consortium of 14 media groups[a] published information about the files, which consist of over 10 gigabytes of speeches, images, spreadsheets and protocols dating back to 2018.

This leak, based on classified Chinese government documents, exposed the operations manual for Xinjiang detention camps and the region's system of mass surveillance.

[7] One document, marked "confidential", outlines what surveillance measures are to be implemented in Yili during a visit of European diplomats, and directed security officers to "strictly" monitor their contacts and work.

[7] The files include details of protocols governing policing at the facilities, making it clear that there are armed officers throughout the camps, and that watchtowers contain machine gun posts and sniper rifles.

[8] One document is a spreadsheet titled "persons subjected to strike hard because of religion"; it lists 330 people sentenced because of religious activities deemed illegal, such as studying the Quran.

Among them are pictures of interrogations, with one photo showing a young man with hands and feet shackled to a "tiger chair", surrounded by heavily armored guards.

[7] Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C., told ICIJ that "Xinjiang has taken a host of decisive, robust and effective deradicalization measures".

[7] Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the leak "the latest example of anti-China forces trying to smear China", stating "[i]t is just a repetition of their old tricks.

[18] On May 23, 2022, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss asked for "unfettered access to the region so that [Bachelet] can conduct a thorough assessment of the facts on the ground".

[21] Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted: "Horrified by the Xinjiang Police Files, which spotlight China's mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities.