‘China holds one million Uighurs in giant camp’

▶ Xinjiang region is being used as a huge indoctrination area and ‘no-rights zone’ for Muslims, UN panel told

A UN human rights panel said it had received many credible reports that one million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination in Geneva, quoted estimates that as many as two million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.

“We are deeply concerned at the many credible reports that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability, China has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something resembling a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy – a sort of ‘no-rights zone’,” Ms McDougall said on Friday.

It was the start of a two-day regular review of China’s record in territories including Hong Kong and Macao.

China has said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from extremists and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in the region and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

A Chinese delegation of about 50 officials made no comment about Ms McDougall’s remarks at the review in the Swiss city.

The US mission to the UN said on Twitter that it was “deeply troubled by reports of an crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in China”.

“We call on China to end their counterproductive policies and free all of those who have been arbitrarily detained,” it said.

The accusations came from sources, including activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which last month said in a report that 21 per cent of all arrests recorded in China last year were in Xinjiang.

Yu Jianhua, China’s ambassador to the UN, said it was working towards equality and solidarity in all ethnic groups.

But Ms McDougall said that members of the Uighur community and other Muslims were being treated as “enemies of the state” because of their ethno-religious identity.

More than 100 Uighur students who returned to China from countries including Egypt and Turkey had been detained, with some dying in custody, she said.

The review is being held as thousands of Chinese Muslims from the Hui ethnic minority are protesting to prevent the demolition of a recently rebuilt mosque in Weizhou, a town the northern Ningxia region.

Although Islam is one of five officially recognised religions in China, home to about 23 million Muslims, the ruling Communist Party has recently called for the “Sinicisation” of religious practice to bring it in line with “traditional” Chinese values and culture.

The party-affiliated Global

Times newspaper yesterday said that no religion was above the law and urged officials to deal firmly with the Weizhou protest.

The paper said local officials should act against what it called an illegal expansion of a religious building. A government order last week called for the mosque to be demolished by August 10, saying it had been rebuilt without permits.

The US mission to the UN said it was deeply troubled by reports of a crackdown on Muslims