UK sanctions Chinese officials over 'appalling' human rights violations in Xinjiang

LONDON (AA) – Britain on Monday said four Chinese officials will be sanctioned over “appalling” human rights violations against ethnic Uyghurs in the northwestern Xinjiang province.

In a statement delivered in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said sanctions will also be placed on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau.

Branding the violations a "highly disturbing program of repression," Raab said: “This is one of the worst human rights crises of our time and I believe the evidence is clear as it is sobering.”

He added: "It includes satellite imagery, survivor testimony, official documentation and indeed leaks from the Chinese government itself, credible open source reporting including from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, [and] visits by British diplomats to the region that have corroborated other reports about the targeting of specific ethnic groups."

"Expressions of religion have been criminalized, Uighur language and culture discriminated against on a systematic scale," Raab added.

Raab in January blasted China's treatment of Uyghurs as "barbarism."

The UK sanctions follow EU sanctions announced earlier on Monday, accusing four officials of being behind the abuses in Xinjiang.

The Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uighurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up a plurality of around 45% of Xinjiang’s population, has long accused China's authorities of cultural, religious and, economic discrimination.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to US officials and UN experts.