China on Monday denied “defamatory attacks” about conditions for Muslim Uighurs and other minorities living in its Xinjiang area, claiming that they enjoyed liberty of faith and labour rights.
Activists and UN rights authorities have said that at least one million Muslims are held in sites in the distant western region. China rejects exploitations and declares its camps deliver professional training and are needed to confront extremism.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UN Human Rights Council that it was taking counter-terrorism measures in accord with the regulation and that Xinjiang enjoyed “social stability and sound development” after four years deprived of any “terrorist case”.
There were 24,000 mosques in Xinjiang, where people of all racial groups also enjoyed labour rights, he said.
“These basic facts show that there has never been so-called genocide, forced labour, or religious oppression in Xinjiang,” Wang said. “Such inflammatory accusations are fabricated out of ignorance and prejudice, they are simply malicious and politically driven hype and couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The Biden government last month recognized a last-minute resolve by the Trump administration that China has conducted massacre in Xinjiang and has said the United States essentially be prepared to penalize China.
Earlier, British foreign secretary Dominic Raab condemned agony, enforced labour and sterilisations that he said were taking place alongside of Uighurs on an “industrial scale” in Xinjiang. “The situation in Xinjiang is beyond the pale,” he said.
Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said: “Our commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also leaves no room for the arbitrary detention of ethnic minorities like the Uighurs in Xinjiang or China’s crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.”
Wang invited UN inspection but gave no schedule.
“The door to Xinjiang is always open. People from many countries who have visited Xinjiang have learned the facts and the truth on the ground. China also welcomes the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang,” he said, mentioning UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, whose office has been exchanging terms of access to the country.
