Uyghur crisis in Xinjiang: China launches fierce defense against human rights repression

Shohrat Zakir's interview took place when Nikki Haley, Washington's ambassador to the UN, denounced the situation in the region as "straight out of George Orwell".

Speaking at a meeting of defense ministers in Washington Monday, Haley said Beijing was engaged in "the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities".

"Their brutal tactics are self-fulfilling, they are creating the radicalism they claim to crush," she said.

"Anti-China rhetoric"

This decision comes less than two months after a Chinese government spokesman completely denied the existence of re-education camps at a UN hearing on human rights .

Addressing Xinhua on Tuesday, Shohrat Zakir did not deny the existence of the camps, saying the former detainees had been transformed for the better by their time inside.

"Many trainees have said that they have already been affected by extremist thinking and have never participated in such artistic and sports activities and now realize that life can be so colorful," he said.

The Xinjiang official added that while "trainees" had acted by religion or family prior to their internment, they "now understood that they were first and foremost citizens of the nation" .

"These Western forces do not care about the well-being of the people of Xinjiang, they would rather sacrifice stability in Xinjiang and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for a single geopolitical victory over China," he said. editorial.

Hu Xijin, editor of the newspaper and a supporter of the Chinese government, said on Twitter that he knew the number of people in the re-education camps.

"I'm not allowed to divulge this figure, all I can say is that it's well below about 1 million" speculated by the outside world, "he said. Hu said the government did not publish this figure to avoid "giving the Western media another excuse to publicize the problem."

International reactions are increasing

After a slow reaction to news from Xinjiang, the Trump government has teamed up with a number of governments to speak out against the crackdown.

"Camp survivors described their experiences as a deliberate attempt by Beijing to stifle Uyghur culture and eradicate the Muslim religion," he said.

In a report of 29 August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern at reports that Uighurs and other Muslims would be detained for a long time without charge or trial. the pretext of fighting against terrorism and religious extremism ".

"Governments that were not previously outraged by Beijing's actions in Xinjiang should urge China to change course immediately and limit the long-term damage to these policies," said HRW China's director. Sophie Richardson.