Source: The Guardian
By Lily Kuo
British diplomats who visited Xinjiang have confirmed that reports of mass internment camps for Uighur Muslims were “broadly true”, the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has told parliament.
Beijing faces mounting international criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, a far-western territory of China where researchers believe an estimated 1 million members of Muslim minorities have been detained in a network of camps.
Hunt told parliament on Tuesday that diplomats had visited Xinjiang in August and “concur that those reports are broadly accurate”.
His comment puts pressure on Beijing before a UN human rights panel that will on 6 November review China’s human rights record. The UK, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Norway, Germany and Belgium have asked about Xinjiang in questions submitted for China ahead of the process known as the universal periodic review (UPR).
Categories: Asia, China, Europe, Interfaith tolerance, Muslims, The Muslim Times, UK