Donald Trump hears ‘tough’ details of China’s Xinjiang camps as he meets detained Uygur scholar Ilham Tohti’s daughter

US president has first public meeting with anyone from China’s Uygur community, and makes first remarks on their internment

Action needed on China, he is told as he also meets Falun Gong practitioner and Tibetan Buddhist at gathering of victims of religious persecution

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Donald Trump and his envoy for religious freedom Samuel Brownback (standing) meet victims of religious persecution in the Oval Office, including Jewher Ilham (far right). Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:52am, 18 Jul 2019Updated: 10:41pm, 18 Jul 2019

United States President Donald Trump met victims of religious persecution from around the world on Wednesday, including one Uygur woman and three other people from China.

The Oval Office meeting with 27 individuals from 17 countries marked the first time in his presidency that Trump has publicly met anyone from China’s Uygur community, or made open remarks about their mass internment in the country’s western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Upwards of 1 million Uygurs and other Turkic Muslim groups are reported to be detained in high-security camps in Xinjiang and subjected to political indoctrination.

Beijing calls the camps “vocational training centres”, a claim that was recently undermined when scholarly research unearthed official documents detailing evidence of coercive internment and political brainwashing.

“That’s tough stuff,” said Trump on Wednesday in response to an account by Jewher Ilham of the network of camps in Xinjiang and the ongoing imprisonment of her father, the prominent Uygur scholar Ilham Tohti.

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