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<p>We have serious concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang Province
and the Chinese government’s deepening crackdown; including credible reports that
over 1 million Uighur Muslims have been held in re-education camps, and reports of
widespread surveillance and restrictions targeted at ethnic minorities.</p><p>Ministers
and senior officials have been raising our concerns directly with the Chinese authorities
for some time, and will continue to do so. I raised our concerns about Xinjiang with
Vice Minister Guo Yezhou during my visit to China on 22 July 2018. The Foreign Secretary
also raised our concerns about the region with Chinese State Councillor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi during his visit to China on 30 July 2018.</p><p>During China’s Universal
Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council on 6 November 2018, the UK made a statement
which described our concern about the treatment of ethnic minorities in China, including
Uighurs. We issued a specific recommendation, calling on China to not only implement
the recommendations by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
(CERD) on Xinjiang, but also to allow the UN to monitor the implementation.</p><p>Following
the Universal Periodic Review, the Minister for the Commonwealth and UN issued a <a
href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/universal-periodic-review-31st-session-minister-for-human-rights-statement"
target="_blank">statement</a> where he said: “I am very concerned about the human
rights situation in Xinjiang, including the re-education camps and the widespread
surveillance and restrictions targeted at ethnic minorities, particularly the Uighurs.
The UK and many of our international partners have made clear during China’s UPR that
this is a priority issue. We recommended that China should implement CERD recommendations
in Xinjiang and allow the UN to monitor implementation.”</p>
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