China on Tuesday criticized a top exiled Uighur leader for “absurd” comments about Britain’s lavish reception for President Xi Jinping, claiming that its far western region of Xinjiang was at peace.
October 20, 2015, Tuesday/ 14:08:48/ REUTERS / BEIJING
China on Tuesday criticized a top exiled Uighur leader for “absurd” comments about Britain’s lavish reception for President Xi Jinping, claiming that its far western region of Xinjiang was at peace.
The red carpet Britain is rolling out this week to welcome Xi is stained with the blood ofUighurs, Tibetans and dissidents, Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the World Uyghur Congress, said in Tokyo on Monday.
China’s repressive policies had turned Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, “almost into a war zone,” Kadeer added.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Tuesday dismissed Kadeer’s remarks as being “absurd and extreme.”
Radio Free Asia reported that at least 50 people died last month in an attack at a Xijiang coal mine that police blamed on knife-wielding separatists, just before China marked 60 years since its founding of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
Exiles and rights groups say China has never presented convincing evidence of the existence of a cohesive militant group, and that much of the unrest can be traced back to frustration at controls over the culture and religion of the Uighur people.
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