Washington D.C., Jun 11, 2019 / 18:01 pm
Islamic countries should be more vocal in criticizing China's mistreatment of the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnoreligious group, the US ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom said Monday.
"I have been disappointed that more Islamic countries have not spoken out. I know the Chinese have been threatening them and but you don't back down to somebody that does that. That just encourages more actions," Ambassador Sam Brownback said in an interview with The Guardian published June 10.
Brownback welcomed Turkey and "a number of western countries that have spoken out aggressively on this."
Some 1 million Uyghurs have been detained in re-education camps for Muslims in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Inside the camps they are reportedly subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination. Outside the camps, Uyghurs are monitored by pervasive police forces and facial recognition technology.