(CNN)United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reminded China that its treatment of Uyghurs is still under close watch. Human rights must be respected even when fighting terrorism, he told Chinese authorities during a visit to last week’s billion-dollar Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, according to a UN spokesman.
China has cracked down on its population of Muslim Uyghurs, who are concentrated in the country’s far western Xinjiang region. Last year, a US State Department official estimated that at least 800,000 and possibly up to two million people may have been detained in huge “re-education centers.” In February, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said the people detained in the camps were subject to “torture and political brainwashing” and called the camps a “great shame for humanity.”
China has defended its use of what it calls vocational training centers, saying they are a necessary counterterror measure.
