China newspaper defends crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang region

Beijing — An official Communist Party newspaper is defending China’s campaign of pressure and internment against the country’s Uighur Muslim minority, saying it had prevented the far-northwestern region of Xinjiang from “becoming ‘China’s Syria’ or ‘China’s Libya.'”

Monday’s Global Times editorial comes after a U.N. anti-discrimination committee raised concerns Friday over China’s treatment of Uighurs, citing reports of mass detentions that is said “resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.”

Following attacks by radical Muslim separatists, hundreds of thousands of members of the Uighur and Kazakh Muslim minorities in Xinjiang have been arbitrarily detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the party.

Global Times said that was merely “a phase that Xinjiang has to go through in rebuilding peace and prosperity.”   /vvp