US Sanctions China for Allegedly Abusing Muslim Uighurs, Placing Them in Detention Camps

The United States government announced they placed sanctions on several Chinese officials who are allegedly responsible for violating human rights of Muslim Uighurs residing in the Xinjiang province of China.

Violation of human rights

Beijing is being accused of detaining masses of ethnic minorities and believed to be religiously persecuting and force-controlling the population of the Uighurs, as reported by BBC.

The US has targeted Communist Party boss Chen Quanguo and the other Chinese officials with the sanctions.

However, China has denied the allegations that the government was mistreating the Muslim Uighurs residing in Xinjiang.

Authorities are believed to have detained about one million people in re-education camps for the past several years. The Chinese government stated the citizens required vocational training to address the issues of radicalism and separatism.

Chen, who is on the most powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, is the highest-ranking official that the US government has sanctioned, said Trump's administration. The Chinese national is thought to be the one who spearheaded the policies that undermine the human rights of ethnic minorities.

The other three officials sanctioned by the US government are Wang Mingshan, Zhu Hailun, and Huo Liujun, who are all from Xinjiang agencies.

The sanctions have made it a crime to make financial transactions with the said officials within the US, and if found guilty, the government would freeze their US-based assets.

Huo, however, will not be given visa restrictions that the other officials were subjected to which denied them and their families access into the US.

US authorities also noted the whole of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau had been sanctioned as a whole.

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Supporting ethnic minorities

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, announced the US government would not tolerate human rights violations and systematic abuses in the region. The official added the US would move accordingly to China's alleged abuse and mistreatment of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

According to The New York Times, Chinese Embassy representatives did not immediately give comments on the accusations.

The sanctions placed on the nationals were based on the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act that gives the US the authority to impose human rights penalties on foreign nationals.

The punishments also come after a talk in 2018 where the Trump administration discussed punishing senior Chinese officials and establishments for allegedly detaining Muslim Uighurs in internment camps.

Trump focused on securing a trade deal with China which would have Beijing commit to purchasing more goods from American-based merchants and establishments.

The director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Renee Xia, said the sanctions were welcome but have been long overdue. She posted a tweet that urged other countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, as well as the EU, to take similar steps in ensuring the safety of ethnic minorities, as reported by Aljazeera.

Uighur groups that resided outside of mainland China echoed Xia's words and called on other countries to act to support human rights.

The director of the Uighur Human Rights Project wrote in a statement that actions of the Chinese officials against the minorities were horrific and inhumane and should be condemned by every nation in the world.