XUAR Muslims are not the target, China tell Islamic nations

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Our anti-extremism and anti-terrorism efforts are not against any particular religion or ethnic group.

XU GUIXIANG, Chinese official

BEIJING: China has appealed to Islamic countries not to believe in the “fabricated” western narrative of detention camps and religious repression in Xinjiang, saying the anti-terrorism policies in the troubled province do not target Muslims and their “normal” religious rights are fully protected.

“Our anti-extremism and antiterrorism efforts are not against any particular religion or ethnic group,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy director of the publicity department of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) said.

Xu was addressing a gathering of selected journalists from Islamic countries and India, which has the largest Muslim population outside Muslim-majority countries.

Xu said there are no detention centres or camps in the province but only vocational training institutes where locals are taught the “national language”, law and livelihood skills, aimed at deradicalisation of citizens influenced by religious extremism.

The interaction was more of an appeal to the media in Islamic countries not to believe what Xu and his colleagues called “false and fabricated western propaganda”. Journalists from Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia were among those invited to the briefing. It was also the foreign ministry’s latest attempt to counter international pressure to give a clear and transparent picture of the situation in the remote province.

According to estimates, also quoted by the UN, more than a million Muslim Uighurs are – or have been – held in restricted political camps in the province.