China rejects allegations of detaining one million Uighurs

Up to a million members of the Muslim minority have reportedly been detained, but the Chinese government denies any wrongdoing.

Uighur men pass a poster showing Mecca in the Xinjiang region Source: Getty Images

Human rights activists claim hundreds of thousands of innocent Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have been unjustly arrested and imprisoned in China.

Last week, a UN panel voiced deep concern at "numerous and credible reports" that China had turned the Xinjiang province, home to millions of Uighurs, into "something that resembles a massive internment camp."

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, raised the claims at a two-day UN meeting on China on Friday in Geneva.

Chinese authorities have long denied the existence of such camps despite mounting evidence from both official documents and human testimonies.

For more details, please listen to the full report in Pashto.