US has sanctioned Politburo member and Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo and three other officials for human rights violations against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang
The US has announced sanctions against four Chinese communist party leaders and officials for violently suppressing human rights violations against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
Seniormost of the those sensored -Chen Quanguo is the Communist Party Secretary in the far western region of Xinjiang. The UN estimates about one million Uighurs of the province have been detained in re-education camps.
China describes these re-education camps as vocational skills training centres necessary to combat “extremism”, however by all accounts the centers represent a systematic effort to stamp out cultural and religious identity of the minority.
The United States will not stand idly by as the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] carries out human rights abuses targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang,” the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
US has also placed visa restrictions on other unnamed Communist Party officials believed to be responsible for abuses in Xinjiang. Their family members may also be subject to the restrictions.
China finds the US decision as a direct interference into its internal affairs and has threatened retaliation .
The other officials who have been blacklisted are Wang Mingshan, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau; Zhu Hailun, a senior party member in Xinjiang, and former security official Huo Liujun.
It is now a crime in the US to conduct financial transactions with all of them, and they will have their US-based assets frozen.
However Huo will not be subjected to visa restrictions that bar the others and their families from entering the US.
Xinjiang Public Security Bureau too has been sanctioned as an organisation.
While the Chinese authorities say the Uighurs are being educated in “vocational training centres” in order to combat violent religious extremism, the evidence shows many are being detained for simply expressing their faith – for example, praying or wearing a veil – or for having overseas connections to places like Turkey.
Uighurs, who are mostly Muslim, are ethnically Turkic and make up about 45% of Xinjiang’s population.
