BEIJING, October 7. /TASS/. The United States and a number of its allies have made an unsuccessful attempt to denigrate China with lies about human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), China’s Foreign Ministry said after the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) rejected the idea of discussions on the situation in XUAR, proposed by the United States and a number of other states.
"The international community has very good eyesight. Although the United States and a number of Western countries did everything possible to put pressure on other nations, the draft decision [on XUAR] still met with strong resistance from a majority of the HRC members, especially from developing countries," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a news release uploaded to its website. "The plan of the United States and other Western countries failed again."
The Foreign Ministry noted that the West had repeatedly used Xinjiang-related issues to spread rumors under the pretext of human rights in order to tarnish China's image and hold back the country’s development.
"The facts prove over and over again that politicization of human rights issues and double standards are unpopular, and that the attempts to suppress and contain China using XUAR-related issues will not succeed," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
On October 6, a proposed resolution on the situation in the XUAR was rejected at the 51st session of the HRC in Geneva by a majority vote.
Nineteen countries voted against the West's initiative, including China, Venezuela, Indonesia, Cuba, Pakistan, Sudan and Uzbekistan. The resolution was supported by 17 nations, including the US, Britain, EU countries, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Honduras, Paraguay and Somalia. Eleven delegations abstained, including Armenia, Brazil, India, Mexico and Ukraine. Russia is not a member of the HRC, so it did not take part in the voting.
Situation in Xinjiang
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, located in the northwest of China, is populated by one of China’s largest ethnic minorities, the Uyghurs, most of whom profess Islam. According to the Chinese authorities, separatist groups linked to the international Islamist terrorist underground operate in the region.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in August 2018 that they had received evidence that up to 1 million Uyghurs might be illegally held in detention camps in Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied rumors about the creation of a large-scale network of prison camps in Xinjiang. At the same time, at the end of 2018, they said that "education and vocational training centers" were operating in the region. According to Chinese officials, people who have fallen under the influence of terrorist and extremist ideas are sent there to be taught the Chinese language, the basics of writing, communication skills and the basics of China’s law.