On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that China is committing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, while China described these statements today as "ridiculous and shameless lies."
The day before Pompeo's departure, with the end of President Donald Trump's term, Pompeo said in a statement, "I think that this genocide continues and that we are witnessing a systematic attempt to eliminate the Uighurs by the Chinese party and state."
Pompeo denounced crimes against humanity committed at least since March 2017 by the Chinese authorities against Uighurs and other members of ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang, according to the statement.
Pompeo added that the United States calls on China to immediately release all those arbitrarily detained and put an end to the system of concentration camps, house arrest and hard labor.
On the other hand, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Shunying described Pompeo's remarks as "ridiculous and shameless lies," and said that the term genocide "is nothing but a scrap paper in our view."
Before his election in November, new US President Joe Biden considered, according to a statement by his campaign team published in August, that the repression of the Uighurs constituted "genocide committed by the authoritarian government in China."
Two days ago, the United Kingdom urged China to allow international observers affiliated to the United Nations to go to China to assess the situation of the Uyghur Muslim minority, after Beijing condemned what it called "interference in its internal affairs" following London's decision to take a package of new measures to prevent trade exchange with the regions where Uyghur Muslims work. Indentured.