China denounces Britain for comments on Uighur Muslims

China has lambasted as “rumors and slanders” comments by the UK Foreign Office that accused Beijing of committing “gross” human rights abuses against ethnic and religious minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The mostly Muslim-Turkic ethnic group of Uighurs, which makes up about 45 percent of the population in Xinjiang, has long accused the government in Beijing of cultural, religious, and economic discrimination.

China rejects the accusation and, in turn, accuses what it describes as exiled separatist groups of planning attacks in the resource-rich Xinjiang, which is strategically located on the borders of Central Asia.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Monday alleged in an interview with the BBC that it was “clear that there are gross, egregious human rights abuses going on... it is deeply, deeply troubling.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin hit back and denounced Raab’s remarks as “nothing but rumors and slander.”

“The Xinjiang issue is not about human rights, religious or ethnic groups at all, but about combating violence, terrorism and separatism,” he said at a regular press conference.

Elsewhere in his allegations, Raab had said that reports of purportedly forced sterilizations and mass detentions in Xinjiang required international attention, and that London “cannot see behavior like that and not call it out.” 

His allegations, however, drew rejection from Wang, who said the forced-sterilization reports were “complete nonsense,” and that the Uighurs had more than doubled in the past forty years.

ME