‘Systematic ethnic cleansing’: Over 100 cross-party MPs and peers write to Chinese ambassador over treatment of Uighur people

Dozens of UK politicians have issued a strongly-worded attack on Beijing’s actions against the Muslim minority group, writes Tim Wyatt

Uighur children watch as police officers pass their home in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang (Getty)

More than 100 MPs and peers have signed a letter demanding an end to the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uighur people in Xinjiang.  

The open letter, organised by Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, describe the campaign of persecution against the mostly-Muslim Uighur people as “a systematic and calculated programme of ethnic cleansing”.  

About 1 million Uighurs are thought to have been detained in what the Chinese government calls re-education camps – many who have escaped abroad have spoken of psychological abuse and inhumane treatment.  

In the letter, sent to the Chinese ambassador in London, Liu Xiaoming, the MPs and peers say they were “sickened” by seeing footage of blindfolded and shaven-headed Uighurs kneeling while being loaded onto trains.  

The video, which was leaked earlier this year, was shown to Mr Liu when he appeared on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in July. 

“The similarities between this video and historical footage of Nazi concentration camps are truly chilling,” the letter states.  

However, Mr Liu insisted the video was “fake” and accused western intelligence agencies of making “false allegations” against China.  

The MPs and members of the House of Lords who signed the letter hail from all the major parties in parliament, and include Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Desmond Swayne, a former minister in the Department for International Development, and Tom Tugendhat, the influential Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee.

“Your interview followed further shocking accusations that the Chinese government is actively pursuing a policy to reduce the Uighur population with Uighur women facing forced sterilisation, forced abortion and the forced removal of their wombs,” the signatories add.  

A report by the AP news agency in June suggested draconian measures by the Communist Party authorities to curb the Uighur population had led birth rates to plummet by more than 60 per cent in some areas.  

“When the world is presented with such overwhelming evidence of gross human rights abuses, nobody can turn a blind eye. We as parliamentarians in the United Kingdom write to express our absolute condemnation of this oppression and call for it to end immediately,” the letter continued.

The British government has previously condemned China’s actions against its Uighur minority, with foreign secretary Dominic Raab accusing China of committing “gross, egregious” human rights abuses in Xinjiang.  

However, Downing Street has so far resisted calls from some activists to impose sanctions against Chinese officials implicated in the Uighur persecution.  

China has consistently denied there is any systematic oppression of the Uighurs taking place and claims the detention camps are instead “vocational training centres” to help eliminate Islamic extremism.  

Beijing is believed to have ramped up its attempt to suppress the Uighur culture and Islamic traditions after a spate of terrorist attacks, which the regime blamed on Muslim extremists from Xinjiang. The detail of many of these incidents is uncertain as foreign journalists are often prevented from covering events in Xinjiang.