US, UK, other nations mount pressure on China over Uighur torture issue

Countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan have been building pressure on China, Zee News reported.

On Oct 6, Germany’s UN ambassador Christoph Heusgen, on behalf of several other countries, stated to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee that countries were ‘gravely concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang’, the Indian news channel reported.

The statement by Heusgen called for China to allow independent observers into Xinjiang region and noted that China had detained close to a million people of Uighur community in Xinjiang and placed severe restrictions on their religious freedom, the news channel reported.

According to reports, Beijing has even subjected the minority community to widespread surveillance, forced labor and involuntary sterilizations. 

Germany’s statement at the United Nations was backed by a total of 39 countries, including most of the EU member states as well as Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Australia and New Zealand, reports Zee News.

Who are Uighur Muslims?

Uighur Muslims are a Turkic minority ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. It is now widely publicized that their human rights are crushed by China and they were sent to "re-education camps" by the communist regime in Beijing.

The Uighurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.

An American representative at the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said in 2018 that the committee had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China have been held in "re-education camps" by the Chinese authorities.