Saudi Arabia on Thursday defended signing a letter along with 36 other nations in support of China’s policies in Xinjiang, where the UN says at least 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.
China has been widely condemned for setting up detention complexes in remote Xinjiang. It describes them as “education training centers,” helping to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.
Last week, nearly two dozen nations at the UN Human Rights Council wrote a letter calling on China to halt it mass detention. In response, Saudi Arabia, Russia and 35 other states wrote a letter commending what they called China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.
When asked about Saudi Arabia’s support for the letter, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UN Abdallah al-Mouallimi told reporters in New York that the “letter talks about China’s developmental work, that’s all it talks about, it does not address anything else.”
“Nobody can be more concerned about the status of Muslims anywhere in the world than Saudi Arabia,” he said. “What we have said in that letter is that we support the developmental policies of China that have lifted people out of poverty.”
A copy of the letter said security had returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there had been safeguarded.
“Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counterterrorism and deradicalisation measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centres,” the letter says.
Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau said al-Mouallimi’s characterization of the letter was “a slap in the face of Muslims being persecuted in China, inaccurate to the point of absurdity.”
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