Muslim Pakistan says outcry over China’s Xinjiang detention camps has been ‘sensationalised’

Numerous extrajudicial detention centres have been set up in the region, holding as many as one million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslim minorities

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A guard tower and barbed wire fences around an internment facility in Xinjiang. Photo: AP

Published: 11:43pm, 20 Dec 2018Updated: 12:28am, 21 Dec 2018

Pakistan on Thursday defended its close ally China against a growing outcry over Muslims who are being detained by Chinese authorities, saying the issue was being “sensationalised” by foreign media.

Numerous extrajudicial detention centres have been set up in China’s vast, troubled Xinjiang region, holding as many as one million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslim minorities, according to estimates cited by a UN panel.

Among them are believed to be dozens of women who married men from neighbouring Gilgit-Baltistan region in Pakistan, where people regularly cross the border into China for trade.

“Some section of foreign media are trying to sensationalise the matter by spreading false information,” Mohammad Faisal, spokesman for Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs, told reporters at a weekly press briefing in Islamabad on Thursday.

“As per Chinese authorities, out of 44 women, six are already in Pakistan. Four have been convicted on various charges, three are under investigation, eight are undergoing voluntary training. Twenty-three women are free and living in Xinjiang of their own free will.”

A guard tower and barbed wire fences around an internment facility in Artux, Xinjiang. Photo: AP

In recent years, Pakistan has heavily pushed its relationship with China, lauding the tens of billions of dollars in investment that Beijing is pouring into the country as a “game changer”.