UN ambassadors from 37 countries released a letter Friday defending China’s treatment of Uighur and other minorities in the Xinjiang region, in direct response to Western criticism earlier this week.
Envoys from across the EU — along with Australia, Canadaand Japan and New Zealand — had earlier co-signed a text denouncing China’sconduct in Xinjiang, where one million people, mostly ethnic Uighurs, arereportedly being held in internment camps.
On Friday a diverse group of states — including Russia,Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Algeria and North Korea — replied on Beijing’s behalf.
“We commend China’s remarkable achievements in thefield of human rights,” said the letter, also signed by Myanmar, thePhilippines, Zimbabwe and others.
“We take note that terrorism, separatism and religiousextremism has caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups inXinjiang,” it said.
Rights groups and former inmates describe the internmentsites in Xinjiang as “concentration camps” where mainly MuslimUighurs and other minorities are being forcefully assimilated into China’smajority ethnic Han society.
Echoing China’s defence of the camps, Friday’s letterdescribed them as “vocational education and training centres.””Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang,” it said.
The group of ambassadors asked for the letter to be recordedas an official document of the Human Rights Council, which wrapped up its 41stsession in Geneva on Friday.
The Western diplomats had made the same request.
Beijing on Thursday dismissed the Western letter as”slander.” The tit-for-tat open letters is rare at the UN’s toprights body, where states typically try to hammer out formal resolutions duringclosed-door negotiations.After initially denying their existence, Beijinghas gone on a public relations blitz in a bid to counter the global outcryagainst what it calls “vocational education centres” in Xinjiang.