China vehemently denied today allegations that one million of its mostly Muslim Uighur minority are being held in internment camps, insisting all ethnic groups in the country were treated equally.
A Chinese official told a UN human rights committee in Geneva that tough security measures in China's far-west Xinjiang region were necessary to combat extremism and terrorism, but that they did not target any specific ethnic group or restrict religious freedoms.
"Xinjiang citizens, including the Uighurs, enjoy equal freedom and rights," Ma Youqing, the director of China's United Front Work Department, told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
During the first day of China's review before the Geneva-based committee on Friday, one of the 18 committee members, Gay McDougall, voiced deep concern at "numerous and credible reports" that China had turned the region into "something that resembles a massive internment camp."
Ma, who was among around 50 high-level Chinese officials answering questions from the committee Monday, insisted that "the argument that one million Uighurs are detained in reeducation centres is completely untrue."
Ma also flatly denied McDougall's claim that the region had been turned into a no-rights zone", saying this was "completely against the facts."
"You said I was false on the million, well, how many were there? Please tell me. And what were the laws on which they were detained?"
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