UN : One Million Muslim Uighurs Held in Secret China Camps
More than one million Uighur Muslims are estimated to be in detention in “counter-extremism centers” in China’s far west, the vice chairperson of a United Nations anti-discrimination committee said, citing credible reports.
More than one million Uighur Muslims are estimated to be in detention in “counter-extremism centers” in China’s far west, the vice chairperson of a United Nations anti-discrimination committee said, citing credible reports.
Gay McDougall made the comments on Friday as the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination started reviewing China’s record over recent years in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Members were “deeply concerned” about reported detentions of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, which have “turned the [Xinjiang] Uighur Autonomous Region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy – a sort of ‘no rights zone’,” McDougall said at the start of the two-day hearing.
“Another two million have been forced into so-called re-education camps for political and cultural indoctrination,” she added. A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment.
China says Xinjiang faces a serious threat from rebels and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.
