BEIJING, Jan 23 (Reuters) – China defended its human rights record on Friday after UN experts said alleged forced labour involving Uyghurs and Tibetans in the Xinjiang region and other parts of China might amount to “enslavement”.
The experts said there was “a persistent pattern” of alleged forced labour affecting Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz minority groups as well as Tibetans in Xinjiang and across multiple provinces.
Such forced labour is enabled through a government-mandated poverty alleviation programme which coerces Uyghurs and members of other minority groups into jobs in Xinjiang and other regions, they said in a statement released on Thursday.
“In many cases, the coercive elements are so severe that they may amount to forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity,” they said.
The experts’ concerns are “completely fabricated” and groundless, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said in a press briefing on Friday.
The Chinese government has always been committed to promoting and protecting human rights, Guo said, urging the experts to “perform their duties impartially and objectively and not become tools and accomplices of anti-China forces”.
Human rights organisations and Western governments including the United States and Canada have repeatedly raised concerns about human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, allegations which Beijing denies.
(Reporting by Joe Cash and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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