Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Chinese counterpart on the release of Uighur Muslims from training centres after they have been identified as non-threats by authorities.

We will continue to ensure that our human rights concerns are directly raised with Chinese authorities. We also regularly raise our serious concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang at the UN.

We are aware of credible reports of widespread cultural, religious, and economic discrimination against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. During China's last Universal Periodic Review, we called on China to halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried, and convicted for a criminal offence in extra-legal detention facilities and immediately release individuals detained under such circumstances. We also raised concerns about arbitrary detention in our 'Item 4' statement at the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2019.

Most recently, the UK Ambassador to China raised our concerns with Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang on 24 December 2019. Further, On 29 October 2019 at UN Third Committee, UK read out a joint statement signed by 22 others drawing attention to the human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang and calling on China to uphold its obligations to respect human rights. On 17 September 2019, at the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council, we reiterated calls for UN experts to be granted unfettered access to Xinjiang and raised our concerns on arbitrary detention.