Considering that the Chinese state deems Islam a mental illness, it might come as a surprise that some muslim countries would support the incarceration and torture of other muslims, but no, thirty-seven countries, including Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have written to the UN to support Beijing, likely in retaliation to the letter sent by some twenty mainly Western countries denouncing the internment of muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, reported today the AFP.

This letter, co-signed among others by Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, North Korea, Algeria, Nigeria, the Philippines and Syria, was announced by China this Friday on the last day of the 41st session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to the same source.

The co-signers of the letter “congratulate China for its remarkable achievements in human rights“. They “take note that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism have caused enormous damage to all ethnic groups in Xinjiang“.

“In the face of the serious challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has taken a series of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, including the establishment of vocational education and training centers“, the statement added, stressing that “security is back” in the region.

China is believed to have interned up to one million people in re-education camps. Beijing denies this figure and speaks of “vocational training centers” intended to teach knowledge and to fight against Islamist radicalization.

According to researchers, investigators, and human rights NGOs, evidence suggests that the muslims in this Chinese region are held against their will and subject to degrading treatment, some have even described what is occurring in the region as a form of “ethnic cleansing“.

Vice News goes undercover and finds a series of ongoing human rights abuses in the Chinese region.

Article last updated on: 13/07/2019