The opposition Green Party accused Chinese authorities of severe human rights violations, forced political indoctrination and massive surveillance in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn estimated one million people have been arbitrarily detained in internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region,\u201d Green lawmaker Margarete Bause said during a parliamentary debate on the human rights situation in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n
She heavily criticized authorities for their clampdown on freedom of religion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPraying is prohibited, mosques are demolished. The goal of all these measures is to systematically eliminate the culture and identity of the Muslim minority in Xinjiang,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stefan Liebich from the opposition Left Party said the detention of around one million people in internment camps in Xinjiang was \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Liebich acknowledged that China\u2019s concerns over stability and the threat of terrorism were understandable.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these cannot justify mass surveillance, spying, internment camps and torture,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
Michael Brand, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s Christian Democratic Union, promised that the government would continue to raise human rights issues in talks with Chinese officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the pretext of the fight against terrorism, brutal repression and human rights violations continue in Xinjiang,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brand criticized Chinese authorities for claiming that the internment camps were in fact \u201cvocational education centers\u201d and stressed that such explanations were far from being plausible.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Merkel\u2019s coalition partner the Social Democrat Party (SPD) backed calls on China to close the camps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we read the reports of Human Rights Watch, we get the impression that Xinjiang has become an open-air prison,\u201d SPD lawmaker Frank Schwabe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want full transparency. We want to have the opportunity for all UN bodies to be able to visit Xinjiang. We are calling on China to close these camps,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government and opposition lawmakers urged China on Thursday to end repressive policies against Uighur Muslims in northwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region of the country. The opposition Green Party accused Chinese authorities of severe human rights violations, forced political indoctrination and massive surveillance in the region. \u201cAn estimated one million people have been arbitrarily detained in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,68,107,118,101,14],"tags":[8366,23595],"class_list":["post-61931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-business","category-health","category-hot","category-politics","category-world","tag-human-rights","tag-muslims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}