Uyghur Tribunal: London Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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We are disturbed by the reports of attempts to intimidate those who have been appearing at the recent hearing. Any attempt by China to silence its critics is unwarranted—it is completely unacceptable, as we saw at the press conference held in China most recently. We are aware of reports of members of the Uyghur diaspora being harassed by the Chinese authorities in an effort to intimidate them into silence. Again, we have called out that behaviour and raised our concerns directly with the Chinese embassy in London.
In order to combat the human rights abuses heaped upon the Uyghur Muslims by China, it is obviously vital that we build the broadest possible coalition of support across the world. In particular, what is my hon. Friend doing about building a coalition of Muslim-majority countries, which seem to be silent on supporting their brothers and sisters in Xinjiang, so that we can ensure that China gets the message that its human rights abuses are unacceptable to the entire world?
My hon. Friend is spot on, yet again; we wish to see a broad international caucus of countries, including Muslim-majority countries, speaking out about the widespread human rights violations in Xinjiang. He is absolutely right to point out that not enough of those countries are speaking out on this issue. I can reassure him that this has been a particular focus of our diplomatic efforts. Through our diplomatic network, and with my ministerial colleagues, we engage our counterparts regularly to set out our concern about the situation in Xinjiang, and we make sure that they are aware of the measures the UK is taking in response. We will continue our focus on building as much support as possible.