China calls Xinjiang accusations ‘lies and false information’

A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry called the reports of crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang province “lies and false information” Tuesday during a press conference.

The Associated Press reported that Wang Wenbin pushed back against persistent accusations from international human rights groups as well as western nations of mistreatment, forced labor, and forced sterilizations in prison camps where thousands of Uyghurs have allegedly been held.

Those accusations, Wang said, were “lies and false information concocted by anti-China forces,” and the product of media outlets who have served as a “loudspeaker of lies and disinformation.”

Media companies should “stop the wrong practice of spreading disinformation about Xinjiang and making false statements at every turn,” Wang added.

The Biden administration accused Beijing as recently as late March of perpetrating “human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang” in a joint statement with the governments of Canada and the U.K.

The countries specified that Chinese forces had subjected Uyghurs to “forced labour, mass detention in internment camps, forced sterilizations, and the concerted destruction of [Uyghur] heritage.”

The statement went on to call for Beijing to grant journalists and United Nations investigators unfettered access to the Xinjiang region, which is heavily restricted.

A report from a D.C.-based think tank in early March also accused Beijing of violating every provision of the U.N. Convention on Genocide Prevention with its activities in Xinjiang.

“The Uighurs have been suffering under the most advanced police state, with extensive controls and restrictions on every aspect of life—religious, familial, cultural, and social,” wrote one of the report’s co-authors at the time.