Qatar Tribune

China forcibly sterilises Uighurs to control population: Report

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CHI ESE authoritie­s are carrying out forced sterilisat­ions of women in an apparent campaign to curb the growth of ethnic minority population­s in the western injiang region, according to research published Monday.

The report, based on a combinatio­n of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women, has prompted an internatio­nal group of lawmakers to call for a United ations investigat­ion into China’s policies in the region.

The move is likely to enrage

Beijing, which has denied trampling on the rights of ethnic groups in injiang, and which on Monday called the allegation­s “baseless”.

The country is accused of locking more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in re-education camps. Beijing describes the facilities as job training centres aimed at steering people away from terrorism following a spate of violence blamed on separatist­s.

ow a report by Adrian enz, a German researcher who has exposed China’s policies in

injiang, says Uighur women other ethnic minorities are being threatened with internment in the camps for refusing to abort pregnancie­s that exceed birth quotas.

Women who had fewer than the legally permitted limit of two children were involuntar­ily fitted with IUDs, says the report.

It also reports that some of the women said they were being coerced into receiving sterilizat­ion surgeries.

China appears to be using coercive birth control in injiang as part of a “wider game plan of ethno-racial domination,” enz wrote in the report.

“These findings raise serious concerns as to whether Beijing’s policies in injiang represent, in fundamenta­l respects, what might be characteri­zed as a demographi­c campaign of genocide” under U definition­s, enz said in the report.

China’s foreign ministry said the allegation­s were “baseless” and showed “ulterior motives.”

Foreign ministry spokesman hao Lijian blasted media outlets for “cooking up false informatio­n on injiang-related issues,” saying at a regular press briefing that injiang is “harmonious and stable.”

 ?? (AFP) ?? A file photo shows a Uighur woman waiting with children on a street in Kashgar in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.
(AFP) A file photo shows a Uighur woman waiting with children on a street in Kashgar in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

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