Alwaght- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday defended China’s persecution of Muslims, saying it was Beijing’s “right”.
"China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremization work for its national security,” Prince Mohammed, who has been in China signing multi-million trade deals, was quoted as saying on Chinese state television.
China has detained an estimated one million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, where they are undergoing re-education programs allegedly intended to combat extremism.
The Uighur are an ethnic Turkic group that practices Islam and lives in Western China and parts of Central Asia.
Beijing has accused the minority in its Western Xinjiang region of supporting terrorism and implemented a surveillance regime.
Uighur groups had appealed to Saudi’s powerful young prince to take up their cause, as the ultraconservative kingdom has traditionally been a defender of the rights of Muslims worldwide.
The United Nations most senior human rights official has requested direct access to China’s Xinjiang region to verify “worrying reports” of re-education camps holding Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
Michelle Bachelet, the high commissioner for human rights, made the announcement las December amid growing global concern over Chinese treatment of the ethnic minority group.
The authorities are believed to have incarcerated as many as two million Uighurs in “reeducation camps” to promote what the government calls “ethnic unity” in the country’s far west.
