{"id":4399,"date":"2018-11-06T20:04:28","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T20:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/06\/un-china-defends-mass-detention-uighur-muslims\/"},"modified":"2018-11-06T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T20:04:28","slug":"un-china-defends-mass-detention-uighur-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/un-china-defends-mass-detention-uighur-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"At U.N., China Defends Mass Detention of Uighur Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"
GENEVA<\/span> \u2014 China faced calls on Tuesday from <\/span>Western<\/span><\/span> government to end its mass detention of Uighur Muslims, but brusquely rebuffed the concerns as \u201cnot factual\u201d and \u201cpolitically driven.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cChina is here to seek cooperation,\u201d said its vice foreign minister, Le Yucheng, at the opening of a review by the United Nations Human Rights Council. He pointed to China\u2019s achievements in lifting millions of people from poverty, largely skirting its treatment of ethnic minorities.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The focus and tone changed after North American and European diplomats expressed concern over deteriorating human rights and a crackdown in the western region of Xinjiang that has swept upwards of a million people into indefinite detention in re-education camps. The Muslim detainees are told that they are infected with an \u201cideological virus,\u201d and are indoctrinated in devotion to the state and the Communist Party.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Representatives of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Australia <\/span>and<\/span> other countries called for an end to the detention of Uighurs and members of other minority <\/span>groups,<\/span><\/span> and urged respect for freedom of religion, expression and association.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The issue has emerged as a point of tension in Chinese-American relations, with tough statements by Nikki R. Haley, the outgoing ambassador to the United Nations, and more recently by Vice President Mike Pence. Congress increased the pressure last month by threatening sanctions against those involved in the program.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mr. Le said called China\u2019s re-education camps a preventive measure to deter people from terrorism and enable them to fit into society. Courses offered by European schools had even provided some of the inspiration for China\u2019s approach, he added.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mr. Le, heading a delegation of more than 60 officials, brushed aside concerns about China\u2019s crackdown on human rights activists under President Xi Jinping. \u201cEverybody is equal before the law,\u201d he maintained. \u201cWhy are these criminals being praised as good people or human rights defenders?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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In August, a United Nations panel reported that China had turned Xinjiang into \u201ca massive internment camp\u201d and questioned the fate of Uighur students who disappeared after returning from abroad.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In the ensuing weeks, China launched a sophisticated propaganda campaign, including a television documentary presenting images of classroom studies far removed from the harsh conditions in re-education camps. In an interview published by the official Xinhua news agency, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of Xinjiang\u2019s government and the country\u2019s highest-ranking Uighur, said the camps had \u201cwon widespread acceptance and wholehearted support of the public in Xinjiang.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Independent reports have shown that China continues to expand the internment centers in Xinjiang.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The country\u2019s stance at Tuesday\u2019s hearing, which came ahead of a visit to China this month by representatives of the Security Council, signaled an evolution from the blanket denials offered in August in <\/span>reponse<\/span><\/span> to questions about the internment camps.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe threat of terrorism was quite serious,\u201d said Yasheng Sidike, a member of the Chinese delegation at the hearing and the mayor of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. \u201cWith these measures, the space for terrorism has been reduced.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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There have been no violent episodes in Xinjiang for 22 consecutive months, he said, and the people he described as \u201cattendees\u201d of the camps \u201cnever thought life could be so colorful and meaningful.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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But Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch, said in a telephone interview that \u201cChina did not earn itself a shred of credibility today.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cChina has failed utterly to respond to factual questions about why people are being held against their will in huge numbers and how long they are being held for,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Criticism of China on Tuesday came almost exclusively from Western governments, while those from Africa and the Middle East praised China\u2019s economic progress \u2014 a split that some analysts said would give China some satisfaction.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cChina is trying to develop a response that can at least keep allies at the U.N. comfortable or deflect international criticism,\u201d James Leibold, a China expert at La Trobe University in Australia. \u201cWhat they probably fear the most is if this was to become one which Muslim countries start to think this is unacceptable. That would be far more damaging.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Source: The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA \u2014 China faced calls on Tuesday from Western government to end its mass detention of Uighur Muslims, but brusquely rebuffed the concerns as \u201cnot factual\u201d and \u201cpolitically driven.\u201d  …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4399"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}