Question Period Note: Uyghurs in China

Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's Xinjiang province face serious restrictions on their rights and freedoms with credible reports that large numbers are being detained.

• We are deeply concerned by the credible reports of the mass detention, repressive surveillance, and family separation affecting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, under the pretext of countering extremism.

• China's lack of transparency about what is happening is troubling. China's actions are counter to its international human rights obligations, as well as the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

• Canada urges Chinese authorities to release Uyghurs and other Muslims who have been detained arbitrarily based on their ethnicity and religion.

• Canada, along with several other countries, has called on the Chinese government to allow the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Special Procedures immediate unfettered, meaningful access to Xinjiang.

• We continue to raise the human rights situation in China, including the persecution of Uyghurs, at every possible opportunity.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) is China's largest province, sharing borders with eight countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia. Xinjiang has a population of almost 24 million people, including 11 million Uyghurs, who typically practice Islam. The Chinese government's objectives in Xinjiang are to maintain social and economic stability, and to develop the region economically. Clashes between Uyghurs and the government have culminated in riots in 2009, and a series of deadly attacks in 2013 and 2014. Credible reports suggest that Chinese authorities are detaining as many as one million or more people in Xinjiang because of their ethnicity or religion under the pretext of countering extremism. Recent reporting confirms government policy promoting a systematic crackdown endorsed at high levels. In detention, they face obligatory patriotic and cultural education, with reports of torture or other ill-treatment and family separation. Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang face deeply repressive security and mass surveillance practices, including the mass collection of biometric data, coercive police actions, and severe restrictions on movement. These activities systematically deny and threaten to destroy the cultural, linguistic, ethno-religious traditions and identities of Uyghurs and other Muslims, as the Aug 2018, report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) concluded. Family members of Canadian citizens have disappeared due to this crackdown. Canada has updated its travel advisory on Xinjiang in Jul 2019. Canada remains deeply concerned by the human rights situation in Xinjiang and has raised this issue both publicly and privately, bilaterally and multilaterally. Canada has made several statements in UN forums. For example, Canada recently co-signed a joint statement with 22 countries on the human rights situation in Xinjiang during the Third Committee dialogue of the CERD in New York, in Oct 2019.

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