China: Uighurs

(asked on 15th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of reports of Uighur Muslim children in western Xinjiang being separated from their parents; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Andrew Murrison Portrait
Andrew Murrison
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 23rd July 2019

Reports about forced separation of children, including Dr Adrian Zenz's report of 4 July 2019, add to the growing body of evidence about the disturbing situation that Uyghurs and other minorities are facing in Xinjiang. We assess that there could be more than a million Uyghurs and other minorities who have been or are currently detained extra-judicially in detention camps in the province. As Mr Field explained in a Westminster Hall debate on 29 January 2019, these detentions have split up families and have had a significant impact on the children of those detained.

We also frequently raise our concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang bilaterally with the Chinese Government and in multilateral fora. Most recently on 3 July at the 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, we noted our increasing concern at the growing use of detention camps in Xinjiang and re-iterated our call on China to allow UN observers unrestricted access.

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