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Three Australians were detained and released from China's political re-education camps in Xinjiang province in the past year, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Key points:
- Australia has approached China on behalf of
- A senior DFAT official says reports 1 million Uighurs have been detained are "credible"
- China has blocked Australia and foreign diplomats from visiting Xinjiang
"Xinhua," Graham Fletcher, head of DFAT 's North Asia division, told a Senate Estimates Committee in Canberra on Thursday.
"Those three individuals are now back in Australia so they're okay."
Australian Government sources told the ABC that some people in Australia, but who are not citizens, have been detained in Xinjiang.
It is not clear how many are still in detention, and their identities have not been made public.
An estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims have been detained in camps across Xinjiang as China steps up efforts to control the Uighur population, according to several reports this year.
Australia is home to a tight-knit Uighur community of an estimated 600 families, with a combined population of over 3,000 people.
Most Uighurs live in Adelaide, with other Muslim minorities who have also been targets of the crackdown.
Australian officials have fielded multiple requests for help from Australian residents in Xinjiang.
Mr Fletcher said diplomats had spoke to one another, and one who had lost touch with a single family member, and another one who was searching for 20 friends and relatives.
Canberra said it was given to the names of the Chinese Government.
"Mr Fletcher said.
"I think we need to consider what action, if any, we're prepared to take a step back.
China blocking Australian diplomats from Xinjiang
Mr Fletcher said reports Australia's largest trading partner was detained up to 1 million Uighur Muslims in re-education camps were "credible" but it was unclear exactly what was transpiring in Xinjiang.
"There seems to be widespread prevalence of individuals being detained for periods of re-education and indoctrination," he said.
"They call it vocational training and frankly we do not know anything about it, but it does not matter whether it is an element of it or not, but it seems to be designed to reinforce the Chinese Government's priorities in relation to ethnic relations in Xinjiang [and] civil order. "
According to Mr Fletcher, China is preventing the Australian and other foreign diplomats from assessing the situation.
Australian officials last traveled to the province in north-western China at the beginning of 2017.
Since then, Mr Fletcher said, a number of requests to visit the province had been knocked back.
"We have expressed to China at a national level in Xinjiang," he said.
"We continue to seek approval."
In response to a request for comment, the Embassy of China in Australia referred to the Xinjiang government official who defended the camps as "vocational training centers".
Xinjiang is designed to eliminate extremism, terrorism and separatism among the Uighur community.
topics:
world-politics,
foreign-affairs,
prisons-and-punishment,
china,
australia,
asia
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