Beijing (Reuters) – The China said this Sunday (22) that it is taking action against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in matters of human rights related to uigures and to Tibet.
The measures, which came into force on Saturday, include freezing assets and banning the targets from entering the country. These include the Canadian Uyghur Rights Defense Project and the Canada-Tibet Committee, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its website.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses against the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority numbering around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labor in camps. Beijing denies any abuse.
China took control of Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation” from feudal serfdom. International human rights groups and exiles, however, have routinely condemned what they call .
For the two institutions, China said it is freezing their “movable, immovable and other types of property within China’s territory”. It is also freezing the assets of 15 people at the Uighur institution and five at the Tibetan committee, banning them from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
Reuters links to the Canadian embassy in Beijing went unanswered. Reuters also did not immediately receive a response from human rights groups or Global Affairs Canada.
