US 'deeply disturbed' with reports of rape, sexual abuse against Uyghur women in Xinjiang

The United States has said that it is “deeply disturbed” by the reports of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in the camps of Uyghur Muslim minority in China’s Xinjiang region. Following the BBC report published on February 3 that stated that women in the camps that are termed ‘recreational’ by the Chinese government were subjected to rape, sexual abuse and torture, US has said that the Asian country must be met with “serious consequences” over such reports. The US state department responded to the report published by Britsih broadcaster based on the interviews with former detainees of the camps and a guard and detailed allegations of “atrocities” including mass rape of women.

"We are deeply disturbed by reports, including first-hand testimony, of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang," a state department spokesperson said. "These atrocities shock the conscience and must be met with serious consequences."

Not just the United States but Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne also commented on the latest revelation about the internment camps in Xinjiang for Muslim minorities and called for United Nations (UN) to be given “immediate” access to the region. She called for transparency and allowing access to the camps for international observers even though China dismissed the report as “false”. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reportedly accused the UK broadcaster of making a report that was “wholly without factual basis”.

"We consider transparency to be of utmost importance and continue to urge China to allow international observers, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, to be given immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang at the earliest opportunity," Payne said.

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China Possibly Committed 'genocide' Against Uyghurs

The BBC report came just weeks after a separate report published on January 14 by a commission of the United States stated China possibly carried “genocide” along with other “crimes against humanity” on Uyghurs, the Muslim minority group in the remote western region of Xinjiang. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said in the report that the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government and Chinese Communist Party have taken unprecedented measures in order to expand its repressive policies including censorship, intimidation and the detention of people in China for exercising the basic human rights.

"Nowhere is this more evident than in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) where new evidence emerged that crimes against humanity--and possibly genocide--are occurring, and in Hong Kong, where the ''one country, two systems'' framework has been effectively dismantled," read CECC report.

The United Nations (UN) has estimated that there are nearly one million Muslims who have been detained in the Asian country’s remote region. Meanwhile, activists claim that several human rights violations are taking place in Xinjiang. But, China has condemned the allegations and claims that the camps in the area are set up to provide ‘vocational training’ to tackle extremism. 

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