UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told leaders in Beijing he expects them to allow UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to make a “credible” visit to China including a stop in the Xinjiang region, his spokesman said on Saturday. Guterres met with Chinese president Xi Jinping and foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, according to a readout of their talks. The UN chief “expressed his expectation that the contacts between the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chinese authorities will allow…
Tag: Xinjiang
China bags Winter Games gold and a rap for ‘cynical ploy’ of Uyghur torchbearer
Glory on the track. Growing criticism off it. China ended day one of these Winter Olympics by celebrating a thrilling first gold medal, while also finding itself facing growing condemnation from human rights groups after selecting a Uyghur to light the Olympic flame. The small number of fans in the Capital Indoor Stadium because of Covid-19 regulations certainly made themselves heard as China’s mixed relay quartet held off Italy by the width of a blade in a dramatic short-track speedskating final. Afterwards, Wu Dajing, the country’s most famous active winter…
Sport is indifferent to the Uyghur genocide: the Warriors investor said the quiet part out loud
The US state department has described the Uyghur human rights issue as a genocide and the largest-scale detention of an ethno-religious community since the second world war. And yet to hear one leading professional sports owner tell it, “nobody cares”. Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire investor in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, used the most recent episode of his All-In podcast to weigh in, dismissing the Uyghur crisis as “a very hard, ugly truth” that’s “below my line”. When his co-host David Sacks countered that the Uyghurs were a great, if…
No friendly politician is too obscure for insecure China, not even Barry Gardiner | Nick Cohen
The Chinese Communist party appears utterly deluded. Hasn’t it learned in its 100-year history that some politicians aren’t worth buying? Wasting its money, or rather the money of the subjugated Chinese people, on Barry Gardiner, of all MPs, seems more silly than sinister. Why bother? If you’ve never heard of him, Gardiner is an unremarkable Corbynista, who has continued the far left’s tradition of excusing anti-western dictatorships. The Labour MP took £420,000, a large whack even by the lax standards of Westminster, from Christine Ching Kui Lee, an influence-peddler MI5…
US sanctioned China’s top facial recognition firm over Uyghur concerns. It still raised millions
SenseTime, China’s largest facial recognition startup, has come under increasing scrutiny by the US government for its alleged role in the surveillance of Uyghurs. Over the past two years, the US has used sanctions to escalate pressure on the company, first by adding it to the government’s entity list, which restricts US exports to the company, and this December, by banning US investment in the firm. But those sanctions have thus far had little effect on the company’s bottom line. SenseTime recently made its debut on the Hong Kong stock…
China replaces Xinjiang party boss associated with Uyghur crackdown
China has replaced the Communist party official widely associated with a security crackdown targeting ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in the far-west region of Xinjiang. The state-owned Xinhua news agency said in a brief announcement on Saturday that Ma Xingrui, the governor of the coastal economic powerhouse Guangdong province since 2017, had replaced Chen Quanguo as the Xinjiang party chief. Chen will move to another role. The change came amid a wider reshuffle ahead of next year’s 20th party congress, scheduled for the autumn. It is not clear whether the…
Intel faces backlash in China after banning products and labour from Xinjiang
Intel, the US computer chip maker, is facing a backlash from China after telling its suppliers not to source products or labour from the region of Xinjiang. Intel said it had been “required to ensure that its supply chain does not use any labour or source goods or services” from Xinjiang in accordance with restrictions imposed by “multiple governments”. The United States has accused China of widespread human rights abuses in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, including forced labour. Beijing has denied the claims. The Global Times, a tabloid…
‘The world must boycott’: Australian Uyghur calls for more pressure on Beijing Games
What Almas Nizamidin knows of his wife’s arrest and disappearance is second-hand: the harried reports relayed by his relatives as it rapidly unfolded. The police came for Buzainafu Abudourexiti at her home in Ürümqi as she was travelling to a doctor’s appointment on 29 March 2017. Her family called, she cancelled her appointment and hurried home. There, the police shoved a bag over her head, forced her into a car and drove her away. Her husband, her family, and her friends have not seen her since. She remains incarcerated in…
Xinjiang: Twitter closes thousands of China state-linked accounts spreading propaganda
Twitter has shut down thousands of state-linked accounts in China that seek to counter evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, as part of what experts called an “embarrassingly” produced propaganda operation. The operations used photos and images, shell and potentially automated accounts, and fake Uyghur profiles, to disseminate state propaganda and fake testimonials about their happy lives in the region, seeking to dispel evidence of a years-long campaign of oppression, with mass internments, re-education programs, and allegations of forced labour and sterilisation. The networks were found to share themes…
Airbnb allegedly hosts Xinjiang rentals on land owned by sanctioned group
Airbnb has reportedly listed more than a dozen properties on land owned by the Xinjiang paramilitary corporation, which has been sanctioned by the US over its alleged involvement in mass human rights abuses against Uyghurs by the Chinese government. The American media outlet Axios reported on Wednesday that the short-term rental company was at risk of exposure to US regulations preventing business dealings with sanctioned entities. Airbnb, which is a major sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, said it was not required to vet the “underlying landowner” of properties…