Turkey: China ill-treating Muslims in Xinjiang area

Ankara, Feb. 10: Turkey on Saturday condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim ethnic Uighur people as “a great embarrassment for humanity”, adding to rights groups' recent criticism over mass detentions of the Turkic-speaking minority.

“The systematic assimilation policy of Chinese authorities towards Uighur Turks is a great embarrassment for humanity,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement.

The northwest Xinjiang region of China, where most Uighurs live, has been under heavy police surveillance in recent years, after violent interethnic tensions.

Nearly one million Uighurs and other Turkic language-speaking minorities in China were reportedly held in re-education camps, according to a UN panel of experts.