Australia said on Thursday it wanted to investigate a United Nations inquiry into allegations that women in China’s “re-education” camps for Uighur were being systematically raped and sexually abused, according to a report.
‘Australian Foreign Secretary Marise Payne’s spokeswoman Australian Foreign Secretary Marise Payne told Bloomberg on Monday.
According to reports last year, up to three million Uighur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang province have been snatched from their homes by their authorities since 2017 and disappeared into a prison camp, which the Chinese government is transferring as a re-education facility.
US ‘DEEP DISTURBED’ BY ACCUSATIONS OF SYSTEMIC RAPE, MUSLIM ABUSE IN CHINA CAMPS: REPORT
Supporters of the Chinese Muslim-Uighur minority are waving the flag of East Turkestan and holding posters 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 had been systematically raped, sexually abused and tortured.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it was “deeply upset” by the allegations.
COMMANDMENTS AGREE WITH TRUMP STATE Department on one issue: China commits genocide against Uyghur
Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Thursday that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had already been invited to visit Xinjiang “and the two parties were in contact with each other,” 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 foreign citizens with an unbiased opinion to visit Xinjiang to see a real Xinjiang with their own eyes,” he added. “Meanwhile, we are against the interference in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights and we are against the suspicion of guilt or any investigation based on it.”
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Former President Donald Trump’s government ruled earlier this year that the Chinese government had committed “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities.
It appears that Biden’s current government will also be difficult for Beijing, as Foreign Minister Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that ‘forcing men, women and children into concentration camps’ is genocide.