The European Union on Monday banned four Chinese officials for the persecution of Uyghur Muslims. The four officials who are under the ban are posted in the northwest region of China’s Xinjiang province. Sanctions include confiscation of the property of these officials under EU and a ban on traveling to the European Union. Apart from this, no financial assistance will be available to these officials on behalf of the citizens and companies of the European Union.
Along with this, the UK government, like the European Union, Canada and the US, banned Chinese government officials on Monday for human rights violations of Uighurs and other minorities in China’s Xinjiang province. Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that the ban against ‘perpetrators of gross human rights violations’ is a step taken under coordination with the international community.
UK imposed a ban for the first time
Britain will impose travel and financial restrictions on four government officials in China and a security body in Xinjiang for the first time. Raab said, “We are coordinating with our international partners to ban those responsible for human rights violations.”
China’s Response
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China first denied the presence of camps to detain Uighurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang. China first that thesecamps are for training and re-educating those who exposed radical jihadist thinking. Chinese authorities deny all allegations of human rights abuses in the northwestern region.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying called the new sanctions ‘disgraceful and disrespectful to the reputation of the Chinese people’ on Tuesday.
Chunying told reporters at press conference, “I want to warn them that they should not underestimate the determination of the Chinese people to protect national interests and honour. They have to pay the price for their stupidity and arrogance.”
Russia and China in solidarity
Foreign ministers of China and Russia had criticized and condemned the sanctions against the two countries. Foreign minister of China Wang Yi said, “Countries should stand together to oppose all forms of unilateral sanctions.” The international community will not adopt these measures.
Russia is facing Western sanctions against human rights abuses and military aggression against Ukraine. Sergey Lavrov, foreign minister of Russia, said that Russia’s relations with China strengthened because Moscow’s relations with the European Union were damaged. He accused Western countries of imposing their rules on all. In a joint statement issued after the meeting, the two ministers said that no country should try to impose the nature of its democracy on others.
The joint statement released by both says, “It is unacceptable to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation on the pretext of advancing democracy.” China says members of Xinjiang’s Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups have volunteered for job training and pulled out of radicalism, refuting allegations that more than 1 million people are subjected to prison-like camps.