UN members split on China’s Uighur rights record

China’s mass detention and surveillance of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang province came under fire at the United Nations Tuesday, with 23 nations -- mostly western -- backing a British statement condemning Beijing’s human rights record. But China’s allies countered with a statement of their own that won even broader support, with some 54 nations backing a Belarus text that heaped effusive praise on Beijing’s “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.”

They included Pakistan, Russia, Egypt, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Serbia. Rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in Xinjiang. Britain’s UN statement Tuesday expressed concerns “regarding credible reports of mass detention; efforts to restrict cultural and religious practices; mass surveillance disproportionately targeting ethnic Uighurs; and other human rights violations and abuses”.

“The Chinese government should urgently... (refrain) from the arbitrary detention of Uighurs and members of other Muslim communities,” it said. Countries backing it included the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.