US Senator Questions World Bank Loan Potentially Used By China To Repress Uyghurs - Letter

US Senator Questions World Bank Loan Potentially Used by China to Repress Uyghurs - Letter

US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in a letter to World Bank Group President David Malpass requested a meeting to assess whether a $50 million loan approved to China for a project in the Xinjiang region is being misused for the repression of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in a letter to World Bank Group President David Malpass requested a meeting to assess whether a $50 million loan approved to China for a project in the Xinjiang region is being misused for the repression of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups.

In 2015, the World Bank issued a $50 million loan that funded an education project that funded a school in Xinjiang that is reportedly forcibly holding Uyghurs in so-called re-education camps to renounce their Islam religion.

"I request that your office make itself available for a meeting with my staff as soon as possible to discuss World Bank's oversight initiatives designed to prevent such a loan from being disbursed in the future," Grassley said in the letter released on Wednesday.

Grassley questioned how the World Bank could adequately asses the Xinjiang education project met the social framework standards of the organization without examining reports of repression of Muslim minority groups, such as the Uyghurs, in the region.

US-Chinese tensions have been fueled on various bilateral fronts including China's alleged human rights abuses against minority ethnic groups in the country.

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, which demands various US government agencies provide reports on the Uyghur situation in China, especially whether or not certain Chinese officials could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

There has been international criticism of the situation in Xinjiang, specifically about the so-called re-education camps in the area, where, as of last summer, up to 1 million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims are reportedly being held under the pretext of fighting terrorism and religious extremism.

According to the Chinese authorities, they have established vocational education and training centers so that people can learn the language and law, as well as gain professional skills. They also help strengthen the resistance to extremism and terrorism.

China has also repeatedly refuted allegations that it discriminates against Uyghurs and said that the country fully complies with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.