A United Nations human rights panel said Friday it has received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.”.
Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities have been forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.
A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment on her remarks at the Geneva session, which is to continue Monday.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations said on Twitter that it was “deeply troubled by reports of an ongoing crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in China.”.
“We call on China to end their counterproductive policies and free all of those who have been arbitrarily detained,” the U.S. mission said.
More than 100 Uighur students who returned to China from countries including Egypt and Turkey have been detained, with some dying in custody, she said.
Panelists also raised reports of mistreatment of Tibetans in the autonomous region, including inadequate use of the Tibetan language in the classroom and at court proceedings. »