Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said on Monday that \u201call measures can be tried\u201d to safeguard stability in the Muslim region of Xinjiang. \u201cWe must hold onto our belief that keeping turmoil away from Xinjiang is the greatest human right,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The editorial comes after a United Nations human rights expert said on Friday that there are an estimated two million ethnic minorities held in large-scale \u201cinternment camps,\u201d the majority of whom are Muslim Uyghurs.<\/p>\n
President Xi Jinping enacted \u201cstrike hard\u201d government campaigns to tackle unrest in 2014 following riots among Uyghur groups in 2009 which mostly targeted majority Han people. Since 2016, hardline official Chen Quanguo has overseen an increase in security spending and the development of a network of extrajudicial internment camps where inmates are held without proper trial, often under \u201cterrorism\u201d or \u201cseparatism\u201d charges<\/a>, according to NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of these detainees have had their due process rights violated,\u201d Vice-chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Gay McDougall told the committee in Geneva. \u201cMost have never been charged with an offence, tried in a court of law, or afforded an opportunity to challenge the illegality of their detention. Many just disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n