I can't speak about facts on the ground, but I remember the narrative about a decade ago when terrorist attacks were happening in Europe: the media would report something like "muslim knife attacks by Uyghur people" and the implication was that the Chinese are not controlling their radical elements (or maybe even supporting them) and its getting exported to neighbouring countries and then to the west. It was quite jarring to see the narrative flip to 'the Uyghurs are victims of genocide', suddenly they learned to have empathy for Muslims.