Calls grow for probe on ‘systematic rape’ of Uighurs in China

WASHINGTON: The US government is “deeply disturbed” by reports of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, and there must be serious consequences for atrocities committed there, the state department has said.

A department spokeswoman reiterated US charges that China has committed “crimes against humanity and genocide” in Xinjiang. The official said China should allow “immediate and independent investigations by international observers” into the rape allegations.

Australian foreign minister Marise Payn has called for a UN investigation. “These latest reports of systematic torture and abuse of women are deeply disturbing,” a spokesperson said.

Former detainees and a guard said they experienced or witnessed systematic rape and torture inside re-education camps where the UN says up to a million Uighurs are detained, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the BBC report was “wholly without factual basis” and charged that the people interviewed for it had been “proved multiple times” to be “actors disseminating false information”.

Beijing cracking down dissent abroad: Report

China is conducting a sophisticated campaign of transnational repression, targeting religious minorities such as the Uighurs, political dissidents and former Communist Party members who have fled abroad, a report said.

HK movement nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the United States have nominated Hong Kong’s anti-beijing and pro-democracy movement for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Five senators and four House members pushed the case in a formal letter to the chairwoman of the prize committee.