US calls China one of the worst regimes for human rights in 2018 due to ‘abuse and torture of Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang’

The United States identified China Wednesday as one of the worst countries on the planet last year in terms of respecting the basic human rights of its citizens.

The State Department’s annual human rights report, released on Wednesday, spotlighted the Chinese government’s systematic internment and possible abuse and torture of as many as two million Uygur Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2018.

The department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published for the 43rd year, aims to promote human rights globally, including freedoms of religion or belief, expression, peaceful assembly and association.

The US has typically scored China in these reports for restricting freedom of speech and assembly and for allowing or committing violence against religious and ethnic groups. Last year, the report called China, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea, “forces of instability”.

But on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing was “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations”.

“Official repression of the freedoms of speech, religion, movement, association, and assembly of Tibetans in the Tibet autonomous region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas and of Uygurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang worsened and was more severe than in other areas of the country,” according to the 2018 report.