UN Envoys of 22 Countries Call on China End Abuses in Xinjiang - Letter
The ambassadors of 22 countries around the world have called on China to end mass arrests and detentions of Muslims in Xinjiang Province amid growing international concerns over reports of a million people detained in political re-education camps, a letter published by Human Rights Watch showed on Wednesday
"We call on China to uphold its national laws and international obligations and to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of religion or belief, in Xinjiang and across China," the ambassadors said in their letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC).
The ambassadors of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were among the signatories of the letter.
Human Rights Watch called the statement signed by 22 HRC members unprecedented, noting that the number of nations willing to openly criticize Beijing had doubled since the last time the UN body scolded China in 2016.
"The countries expressed concern about reports of large-scale arbitrary detention, widespread surveillance, and other violations against Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang," Human Rights Watch said in a press release.
In recent years, human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, and the media have reported on "political education" camps in Xinjiang, in which approximately 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims are detained without any legal process, and subjected to political indoctrination, ill-treatment, and sometimes torture, the release said.
In addition, Chinese authorities have deployed extraordinary surveillance technologies to track - and treat as criminal - a wide variety of lawful behavior, the release added.
Beijing denies that abuses are taking place and calls its crackdown in China's western-most province part of a national counterterrorism strategy.