Australia said Thursday it is seeking a United Nations investigation into allegations that women in China’s “re-education” camps for Uyghurs were systematically raped and sexually assaulted, a report said.
“These latest reports of systematic torture and abuse of women are deeply disturbing and raise serious questions about the treatment of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement Thursday. to Bloomberg.
According to reports from last year, up to three million Uyghur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang province have been plucked from their homes by authorities since 2017 and disappeared in a prison camp, which the Chinese government is covering up as a re-education facility.
US BECOME ‘DEEP DISTURBANCE’ BY MENTIONS OF SYSTEMIC RAPE, MUSLIM ABUSE IN CHINA CAMPS: REPORT
Supporters of the Chinese Muslim-Uyghur minority wave the flag of East Turkestan and hold signs on December 20, 2019, during a demonstration in Fatih in Istanbul. (Photo by Ozan KOSE / AFP) (Photo by OZAN KOSE / AFP via Getty Images)
The BBC reported on Wednesday that women in those camps have been systematically raped, sexually assaulted and tortured.
On Wednesday, the US State Department said it was “deeply troubled” by the allegations.
BIDEN AGREES WITH TRUMP STATE DEPARTMENT ON ONE PROBLEM: CHINA DEDICATED GENOCIDE AGAINST UYGHURS
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Thursday that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had already been invited to visit Xinjiang “and that the two sides have been in contact,” Bloomberg reported.
China denies allegations of abuse in Xinjiang, saying it is “not about ethnicity, religion or human rights, but about anti-violence, anti-terrorism, anti-separatism and de-radicalization.”
“We welcome the foreigners with an unbiased outlook to visit Xinjiang to see a real Xinjiang with their own eyes,” he added. “In the meantime, we oppose interference in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights and we are against the presumption of guilt or any investigation based thereon.”
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Former President Donald Trump’s administration ruled earlier this year that the Chinese government had committed “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities.
It seems that the current Biden administration will also be tough on Beijing, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that “forcing men, women and children into concentration camps” amounts to genocide.