FILE PHOTO: The Chinese national flag flies over a mosque in the old city in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, May 4, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
January 20, 2022
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s parliament passed an opposition-led motion asking the government to condemn China for “crimes against humanity and genocide” against its Uyghur Muslim minority and to take foreign policy measures to make this stop.
The non-binding motion, led by the Socialist party and supported by several other opposition parties, was adopted with 169 votes for and one vote against.
Coming ahead of the start of the Winter Olympics in China, the motion also asked the government to protect Uyghur residents in France against any intimidation or harassment by China.
Activists and U.N. rights experts say at least 1 million Muslims are being detained in camps in the remote western region of Xinjiang. The activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations.
China denies any human rights abuses in Xinjiang and says its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.
Following a similar vote in the Dutch parliament https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-china-uighurs-idUSKBN2AP2CI in February 2021, the Chinese Embassy in The Hague said any suggestion of a genocide in Xinjiang was an “outright lie” and that the Dutch parliament had “deliberately smeared China and grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in December that he did not want to “politicise” https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/macron-questions-utility-diplomatic-boycott-winter-olympics-2021-12-09 the Olympics.
The United States, Australia and Britain are among Western nations that have said they will not send officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in order to send China a message over its human rights record.
(Reporting by Myriam Rivet and GV De Clercq; Editing by Alex Richardson)
