China’s ambassador to Germany on Thursday cancelled a meeting with members of parliament in response to a hearing in the Bundestag’s human rights committee on Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority.
Wu Ken was reacting after lawyers and rights experts addressed a committee hearing on how to view treatment of the Muslim minority in the north-western Xinjiang Province.
While the experts refused to characterise the treatment as genocide under international law, some of them said there were sound reasons to see it as a crime against humanity.
Wu charged the committee with interfering in China’s internal affairs, according to a letter to the committee head, Gyde Jensen, seen by dpa.
The ambassador wrote that it was regrettable that a hearing had taken place based on plainly false allegations against Xinjiang.
Jensen told dpa that the hearing held on Monday had likely provided the Chinese ambassador with a handy pretext for cancelling his meeting with the committee.
“I have unfortunately come to the conclusion that the Chinese side is not at all interested in open dialogue on the human rights situation in China,’’ she said.
Beijing had no interest in making use of established institutional facilities for “bilateral cooperation as soon as it concerns themes that do not suit the Communist Party,” Jensen added.
Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in Xinjiang have been put into re-education camps.
The allegations against China range from forced labour to torture.
Beijing rejects the allegations and speaks instead of training centres.(dpa/NAN)
