Beijing criticizes Pope over Uighurs

A comment from Pope Francis in an upcoming book — in which he called ethnic Uighurs in western China a “persecuted” people for the first time — has set the Chinese government on the defense.

The reference to abuses against Uighurs, which Beijing has long denied despite mounting evidence of a brutal crackdown, could tarnish the recent warming of relations between the Vatican and China.

Writing in his new book “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future,” Francis listed “the poor Uighurs” among the people of the world he kept in his mind and prayers.

“I think often of persecuted peoples,” Francis said in one passage. “The Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi — what ISIS did to them was truly cruel — or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church.”

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a Tuesday news briefing that the pope’s words had “no factual basis.”

“The Chinese government has always protected the legal rights of ethnic minorities equally,” he said, according to Reuters. “The remarks by Pope Francis are groundless."

Human rights groups and governments around the world have denounced the Chinese government’s persecution of the group after evidence emerged of the internment of more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in socalled reeducation camps in far western China, as well as for mass surveillance and travel restrictions.

Before the comments emerged this week, the pontiff had remained silent on the abuses against the Uighurs, a tactic experts saw as an effort to avoid alienating Chinese officials at a time when the two states were negotiating.