Pakistan defends China's human rights record

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has defended its close ally China, condoning its policy directed towards its minority Muslim community, describing an international outcry over rehabilitation centers as media sensationalism.

According to Press TV, lawmakers in Pakistan’s northernmost region of Gilgit-Baltistan demanded earlier this year, that authorities in China’s Xinjiang Province immediately release dozens of Chinese women married to Pakistani men, who were being held in in re-education centers.

Mohammad Faisal, Spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters at a weekly press briefing in Islamabad on Thursday that some media outlets were spreading fake news about the Chinese women married to Pakistani nationals.

"Some section of foreign media are trying to sensationalize the matter by spreading false information," Faisal said, adding, "As per Chinese authorities, out of 44 women, six are already in Pakistan. Four have been convicted on various charges, three are under investigations, eight are under going voluntary training. Twenty-three women are free and living in Xinjiang of their own free will," he said.

Human Rights Watch has accused the Chinese government of carrying out “repressive policies” against the Muslims in Xinjiang. “These rampant abuses violate fundamental rights to freedom of expression, religion, and privacy, and protection from torture and unfair trials,” the report said.

“More broadly, governmental controls over day-to-day life in Xinjiang primarily affect ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities, in violation of international law’s prohibitions against discrimination.” Chinese officials have denied the abuses. Instead, they characterized these camps as “vocational education and employment training centers” for “criminals involved in minor offenses.”

The minority Muslim community in China claim they are facing discrimination and religious persecution.

Xinjiang has for decades been hit by outbreaks of violence. Chinese officials, however, say Beijing’s human rights record in the country’s volatile west is clean.

Beijing has accused those it considers as exiled Uighur separatist groups of planning attacks on the resource-rich region.

Last March, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the military to erect a “Great Wall of Steel” around the restive region.

ME