China says millions of Muslims are not being detained in centers

BERLIN — China insisted Monday that “arbitrary detention” or “re-education centers” do not exist in its far western Xinjiang region, rejecting concerns raised by a U.N. human rights committee that millions of ethnic Uighurs might be held in camps.

Beijing was responding to questions raised by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva. A committee member last week cited estimates that over 1 million people in China from the country’s Uighur and other Muslim minorities are being held in “counter-extremism centers” and 2 million others have been forced into “re-education camps.”

In Xinjiang, following sporadic violent attacks by Muslim separatists, hundreds of thousands of members of the Uighur and Kazakh Muslim minorities have been arbitrarily detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the party.

China’s delegation told the U.N. panel that “there is no arbitrary detention … there are no such things as re-education centers.”

“The argument that 1 million Uighurs are detained in re-education centers is completely untrue,” Chinese delegate Hu Lianhe said.

He added “there is no suppression of ethnic minorities or violations of their freedom of religious belief in the name of counter-terrorism.”

Gay Mcdougall, the committee vice chairwoman who brought up the detentions last week, said she wasn’t convinced by China’s “flat denial” of the detention figures. She said China “didn’t quite deny” that re-education programs are taking place.

“You said that was false, the 1 million. Well, how many were there? Please tell me,” she said.