China holds one million Uighurs in secret camps, says UN

Geneva: One million ethnic Uighurs in China are detained in what looks like a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy” Reuters reports based on what a United Nations human rights panel said on Friday.

The panel said that it had received many credible reports regarding this.

An estimated 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities, according to Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, were forced into camps in the western Xinjiang autonomous region for “indoctrination”.

Part of what it calls efforts at combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability, China transformed the Uighur autonomous region into what looks like “internship camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

According to China, Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in the northwest, faces serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists; also, they foment tensions between the Muslim Uighur minority and ethnic Han Chinese majority.

However, the Chinese delegation at the Geneva session maintained silence at the remarks.

Meanwhile, the US mission to the UN responded on twitter calling China to ““end their counterproductive policies and free all of those who have been arbitrarily detained,”