BEIJING – China vehemently denied Monday allegations that one million ofits mostly Muslim Uighur minority are being held in internment camps,insisting all ethnic groups in the country are treated equally.
A Chinese official told a UN human rights committee in Geneva that toughsecurity measures in China’s far-west Xinjiang region were necessary tocombat extremism and terrorism, but that they did not target any specificethnic group or restrict religious freedoms.
“Xinjiang citizens, including the Uighurs, enjoy equal freedom and rights,”Ma Youqing, the director of China’s United Front Work Department, told theUN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
During the first day of China’s review before the Geneva-based committee onFriday, one of the 18 committee members, Gay McDougall, voiced deep concernat “numerous and credible reports” that China had turned the region into”something that resembles a massive internment camp.”
She cited reports from rights groups that upwards of one million ethnicUighurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities are being held incounter-extremism centres, while another two million “have been forced”into reeducation camps for “political and cultural indoctrination”.
– ‘Completely untrue’ –
Ma, who was among around 50 high-level Chinese officials answeringquestions from the committee Monday, insisted that “the argument that onemillion Uighurs are detained in reeducation centres is completely untrue.”
Chinese authorities have long denied the existence of such camps despitemounting evidence from both official documents and testimonies from thosewho have been held in them.
Ma also flatly denied McDougall’s claim that the region had been turnedinto a no-rights zone”, saying this was “completely against the facts.”
“There is neither deliberate targeting at a particular ethnic minority, norsuppressing or restricting the rights or the freedom of religious belief ofthe Uighur people,” he said.
McDougall appeared unimpressed by Ma’s comments.
“I heard a flat denial of allegations about detentions in the Uighur area,”she said.
“You said I was false on the million, well, how many were there? Pleasetell me. And what were the laws on which they were detained?”
“We have to have more than a denial of allegations,” she insisted.
China has stepped up a crackdown in Xinjiang against what it calls Islamicextremism and separatist elements but many Muslims in the region accuseBeijing of religious and cultural repression.
In a region that shares borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, Muslims faceregulations banning beards and veils as well as the distribution ofunauthorised Korans.
But China’s state-run Global Times newspaper insisted Monday that the toughsecurity measures in the region had prevented it from turning into “China’sSyria” or “China’s Libya”.
The Global Times defended the crackdown in an editorial, accusing the Westof trying to “stir trouble for Xinjiang and destroy the hard-earnedstability in the region”.
“The turnaround in Xinjiang’s security situation has avoided a greattragedy and saved countless lives,” the newspaper wrote in its English andChinese editions.
China has stepped up a crackdown in Xinjiang against what it calls Islamicextremism and separatist elements but many Muslims in the region accuseBeijing of religious and cultural repression. APP/AFP