China is forcing Uighur labour to mass produce face masks as part of the country’s Muslim ‘re-education’ programme during the coronavirus pandemic, a report has revealed.
Chinese companies are using Uighur workers through a controversial government-sponsored programme which humanitarian campaigners call a form of forced labour, according to a New York Times visual investigation.
It comes as Britain accused Beijing of ‘gross, egregious human rights abuses’ over its ‘deeply troubling’ treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang.
China is forcing Uighur workers to mass produce face masks as part of the country’s Muslim ‘re-education’ programme during the coronavirus pandemic, report says. The file picture taken on June 18 shows workers at a garment factory in Aketao county of the Uighur region Xinjiang
China has been heavily criticised by other countries and NGO groups over its policies against Muslims and other religious groups, including alleged sterilisation programmes, forced labour and ‘re-education’ camps.
UN experts and activists have claimed that at least one million ethnic Uighurs are held in the detention centres in Xinjiang, the western Chinese region with a large population of the Muslim ethnic minority.
Former detainees claimed that Muslims were forced to eat pork and speak Mandarin in those internment camps.
After initially denying their existence, China acknowledged that it had opened ‘vocational education centres’ in Xinjiang aimed at preventing extremism by teaching Mandarin and job skills.
China has been heavily criticised by other countries over its policy against Muslims The file picture taken on June 21 shows a group of Uighur women working at a garment factory in a resettlement area in Yecheng county of China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
But the country is rushing to meet the global demand for PPE during the pandemic by using Uighur labour through the labour-transfer programme, the New York Times revealed.
Before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in March, there were four companies in the Xinjiang region producing the health gear. The number had risen to 51 by the end of June.
At least 17 Chinese companies are using Uighur forced labour to produce personal protective equipment (PPE), among which some is exported to other countries including the US, said the report.
At least one shipment of face masks, traced by the New York Times, was sent to a medical supply company in the American state of Georgia from a factory in Hubei province, where over 100 Uighur people had been sent there to work.
World Uyghur Congress, a Germany-based rights group for the ethnic minority, said that the use of forced labour in the production of PPE ‘isn’t at all shocking’.
A spokesperson told MailOnline: ”Given the shortage of masks worldwide, it seems fitting that the Chinese authorities would force Uyghurs to work in the production of masks and other protective gears. It is extremely distressing because it suggests that the government has no consideration for the lives of Uyghurs.
‘China likes to claim ”ethnic harmony”, but there can be no such thing in a hostile environment for the entire Uyghur population, where they are subjected to discriminatory and genocidal policies.‘
It comes after Dominic Raab has said that the reports of forced sterilisations and mass detentions in China’s Xinjiang required international attention.
‘It is clear that there are gross, egregious human rights abuses going on… it is deeply, deeply troubling,’ he told the BBC this week.
Dominic Raab (pictured on July 14 at Downing Street) said the reports of forced sterilisations and mass detentions in the predominantly Muslim region required international attention
‘The reports and the human aspects of it… are reminiscent of something we have not seen for a long, long time, and this is from a leading member of the international community that wants to be taken seriously.
‘We want a positive relationship [with China], but we cannot see behaviour like that and not call it out,’ Raab added.
China’s ambassador to the UK Sunday insisted Uighur Muslims live in ‘peace and harmony’ despite being confronted with video appearing to show shackled prisoners being herded onto trains.
Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, Liu Xiaoming denied reports that China is carrying out a programme of sterilisation of Uighur women in the western Xinjiang region.
He went on to insist the Uighur population, which has reportedly increased in numbers in the last 40 years, enjoy a ‘peaceful, harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups’ in Xinjiang.
It comes after top global brands such as Apple, BMW and Sony have been accused of getting supplies from factories using the Uighur forced labour.
The Chinese government has transferred 80,000 or more Uighurs out of camps in Xinjiang and into factories across the country, according to The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in March.
Who are the Chinese Muslims?
Muslims are not a new presence in China. Most of China’s Muslim communities, including the Hui, Uighurs and Kazakhs, have lived in China for more than 1,000 years, according to fact tank Pew Research Center.
The largest concentrations of Muslims today are in the western provinces of Xinjiang, Ningxia, Qinghai and Gansu.
A substantial number of Muslims live in the cities of Beijing, Xi’an, Tianjin and Shanghai.
Chinese Muslim men take part in gathering for the celebration of the Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, or the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice, at the Niu Jie mosque in Beijing, China
They make up about two per cent of the 1.4 billion population in China. However, as the country is so populous, its Muslim population is expected to be the 19th largest in the world in 2030.
The Muslim population in China is projected to increase from 23.3 million in 2010 to nearly 30 million in 2030.
Those who grow up and live in places dominated by the Han Chinese have little knowledge about Islam – or religions in general – thus view it as a threat.
Beijing’s policymakers are predominately Han.
At the same time, radical Muslim Uighurs have killed hundreds in recent years, causing China to implement even more extreme measures to quash potential separatist movements.
Uighurs in particular have long been used to heavy-handed curbs on dress, religious practice and travel after a series of deadly riots in 2009 in Urumqi, according to the Financial Times.
Schoolchildren were banned from fasting during Ramadan and attending religious events while parents were banned from giving newborns Muslim names such as ‘Mohammed’ and ‘Jihad’.
Certain symbols of Islam, such as beards and the veil, were also forbidden. Women with face-covering veils are sometimes not allowed on buses. Unauthorised pilgrimages to Mecca were also restricted.