BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th February, 2021) Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin rejected reports of systematic rape and sexual abuse of women in so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang.
A day prior, the US Department of State expressed its disturbance over reports, initially circulated by the BBC, stating that Muslim minority women in the camps were regularly subjected to rape and sexual violence.
"There is no so-called systematic rape and sexual abuse against women, China is a rule-of-law state, our constitution guarantees and protects human rights, this is enshrined in our legal system and government work," Wang said at a regular news briefing in Beijing.
He stressed that the "re-education centers" strictly observe the constitution and laws, ensuring the fundamental rights of those who are there, and that violence and ill-treatment are prohibited.
He went on to call the global community to refrain from interference in China's internal affairs.
"China opposes any interference in the internal affairs of China, we will continue to protect our sovereignty, security and development interests," he added.
In a separate statement released on Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the BBC of producing "fake news" in its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and demanded a public apology.
Commenting on the matter earlier in the week, when the first reports were published, Wang underlined that Xinjiang's local government has held over 20 media conferences and has hosted over 1,200 diplomats, journalists and representatives of religious groups all of whom witnessed "the unity, harmony, joy and peace of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang."
Western nations, organizations and media outlets have long accused China of arbitrary imprisonment and torture, among other abuses of the local people groups, who are separate from the dominant Han ethnicity of China. The United Nation's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2018 published a report saying that over one million people were held in those re-education camps against their will. Widespread reports indicated that around two million people were interned in newly built compounds across the autonomous region by 2020.
The US designated China's actions in Xinjiang a genocide in the last weeks of the tenure of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Beijing denies all the charges and maintains the camps serve to de-radicalize locals from Islamic extremism, separatism and terrorism.
