The U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo renewed demands for China to end practice of detaining Uighur Muslims in huge camps in Xinjiang.
Pompeo spoke on Wednesday while meeting a survivor and relatives of the regime, under which at least a million Uighurs are believed to be held. Pompeo said, “We call on the Chinese government to release immediately these individuals’ family members and all others arbitrarily detained in the camps.”
An Uighur muslim spoke to US diplomat said that it was a widespread torture in China’s prisons for the minority group. She told the US diplomat that she was separated from her children and detained in a cramped cell with 60 other women, suffering electrocution and beatings during round the clock interrogations.
The state department also added that Pompeo met three other Uighurs whose relatives were detained by China.
According to the state department as well as international human rights groups, China has confiscated Qurans from Uighurs and forced them to drink alcohol and eat pork, which are forbidden by Islam.
China denies the accounts of mass detention, saying it is running educational training centers as part of a fight against Islamic extremism in the north-western region of Xinjiang.
China is using private surveillance companies to track 2.5 million Xinjiang residents and according to a UN report, China has detained a million Uighurs.