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AFP
Beijing
Chinese authorities are carrying out forced sterilisations of women in an apparent campaign to curb the growth of ethnic minority populations in the western Xinjiang region, according to research published Monday.
The report, based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women, has prompted an international group of lawmakers to call for a United Nations investigation into China’s policies in the region.
The move is likely to enrage Beijing, which has denied trampling on the rights of ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and which on Monday called the allegations “baseless”.
The country is accused of locking more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in re-education camps. Beijing describes the facilities as job training centres aimed at steering people away from terrorism following a spate of violence blamed on separatists.
Now a report by Adrian Zenz, a German researcher who has exposed China’s policies in Xinjiang, says Uighur women other ethnic minorities are being threatened with internment in the camps for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceed birth quotas.
Women who had fewer than the legally permitted limit of two children were involuntarily fitted with IUDs, says the report.
It also reports that some of the women said they were being coerced into receiving sterilization surgeries.
China appears to be using coercive birth control in Xinjiang as part of a “wider game plan of ethno-racial domination,” Zenz wrote in the report.
“These findings raise serious concerns as to whether Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang represent, in fundamental respects, what might be characterized as a demographic campaign of genocide” under UN definitions, Zenz said in the report.
China’s foreign ministry said the allegations were “baseless” and showed “ulterior motives.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blasted media outlets for “cooking up false information on Xinjiang-related issues,” saying at a regular press briefing that Xinjiang is “harmonious and stable.”
Beijing
Chinese authorities are carrying out forced sterilisations of women in an apparent campaign to curb the growth of ethnic minority populations in the western Xinjiang region, according to research published Monday.
The report, based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women, has prompted an international group of lawmakers to call for a United Nations investigation into China’s policies in the region.
The move is likely to enrage Beijing, which has denied trampling on the rights of ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and which on Monday called the allegations “baseless”.
The country is accused of locking more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in re-education camps. Beijing describes the facilities as job training centres aimed at steering people away from terrorism following a spate of violence blamed on separatists.
Now a report by Adrian Zenz, a German researcher who has exposed China’s policies in Xinjiang, says Uighur women other ethnic minorities are being threatened with internment in the camps for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceed birth quotas.
Women who had fewer than the legally permitted limit of two children were involuntarily fitted with IUDs, says the report.
It also reports that some of the women said they were being coerced into receiving sterilization surgeries.
China appears to be using coercive birth control in Xinjiang as part of a “wider game plan of ethno-racial domination,” Zenz wrote in the report.
“These findings raise serious concerns as to whether Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang represent, in fundamental respects, what might be characterized as a demographic campaign of genocide” under UN definitions, Zenz said in the report.
China’s foreign ministry said the allegations were “baseless” and showed “ulterior motives.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blasted media outlets for “cooking up false information on Xinjiang-related issues,” saying at a regular press briefing that Xinjiang is “harmonious and stable.”
