Detention of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

It is a great pleasure and a great surprise to be responding to an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. We take those allegations absolutely seriously. We have consulted the World Health Organisation and our international partners. The evidence provides disturbing details about the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, for example, and raises worrying questions about China’s transplant system. We are keeping the matter under review, and welcome any and all new evidence on the issue.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

We have been talking about these issues for so long, yet there does not seem to be international action to deal with them. In Xinjiang province, people are living in fear, with 1 million people incarcerated and threats of sterilisation, yet we are not taking any action. Does the Minister agree that, as well as taking the action that we can take, we should get the international community behind us so that we can take concerted action to deal with this?

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. In recent months, we have seen deeply troubling allegations of forced birth control measures and sterilisation against Uyghur women in Xinjiang. We have also seen reliable reports that Uyghur children are being forcibly separated from their parents and taken to state-run orphanages, where lessons are taught in Mandarin and where political education, for want of a better phrase, is a key part of the curriculum.

Over 1 million Uyghurs, which is more than 10% of the Uyghur population, have been detained in internment camps without trial. Recent reporting, based on analysis of satellite images, suggests that the Chinese authorities continue to construct new internment camps.