GENEVA: A UN human rights panel said on Friday that it had received manycredible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in whatresembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of RacialDiscrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslimminorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in thewestern Xinjiang autonomous region.

“We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that wehave received that in the name of combating religious extremism andmaintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomousregion into something that resembles a massive internship camp that isshrouded in secrecy, a sort of ‘no rights zone’,” she told the start of atwo-day regular review of China’s record, including Hong Kong and Macao.

China says Xinjiang faces a serious threat from militants and separatistswho plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighurminority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment on her remarks atthe Geneva session that continues on Monday.

The allegations came from multiple sources, including activist groupChinese Human Rights Defenders, which said in a report last month that 21per cent of all arrests recorded in China in 2017 were in Xinjiang.

Earlier, Yu Jianhua, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva,said it was working towards equality and solidarity among all ethnic groups.