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“I often think of the persecuted people: the Rohingyas, the poor Uyghurs, the Yazidis – what ISIS did to them was really cruel – or the Christians of Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that exploded while they prayed in church, ”Francis says in a new book,“ Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future, ”released Monday.
The US State Department said as many as two million Uyghurs, who are predominantly Muslim, and other minority groups were taken to huge detention centers in the Xinjiang region, in the extreme western China, where former detainees said they had been subjected to indoctrination, physical abuse and sterilization.
Beijing insists the camps are vocational training centers built to deal with the threat of religious extremism and denies allegations of widespread human rights violations in Xinjiang.
The Pope does not go into more detail on the Uyghur issues in the book apart from the brief mention, while he speaks in more detail of other persecuted groups like the Rohingya.
The book, A Broad Reflection on Francis’ Vision for a Post-Coronavirus World, was written with papal biographer Austen Ivereigh in the summer of 2020.
Beijing had long insisted on having the final say on all bishop appointments in the country, but the 2018 agreement ended decades of tension between the two sides, which severed formal diplomatic ties in 1951.
Details of the deal were never made public and it has been criticized by some, including US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Speaking at a regular press conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Pope Francis’ inclusion of Uyghurs on a list of persecuted peoples was “completely unfounded. “.
“There are 56 ethnic groups in China, and the Uyghur ethnic group is a full member of the Chinese nation’s great family. The Chinese government has always treated (all) minority groups equally and protected their legitimate rights and interests, ”he told me.
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