Washington D.C., Mar 11, 2021 / 08:15 am
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) lambasted the Chinese authorities for restricting the religious practices of the largely-Muslim Uyghur population, at a Wednesday hearing.
"When a regime deprives a people of their right to practice their faith freely, they are depriving those people of their full humanity," Rubio said in a prepared statement read by Tony Perkins, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), at the commission's hearing Wednesday on forced labor in Xinjiang, China.
The hearing on "A Religious Minority Enslaved: Addressing the Complicity of U.S. Companies in Uyghur Forced Labor," focused on China's treatment of the largely-Muslim population of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in province of Xinjiang.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Rubio said, is on a campaign to divorce the Uyghurs "from the traditions that sustained their ancestors and defined who they are as a people."