TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In response to recent sanctions imposed by Washington over Xinjiang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Tuesday (Dec. 21) announced retaliatory sanctions against four officials on a U.S. government committee that tracks abuses against religious freedom.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is a bipartisan entity that makes recommendations to the executive and legislative branches and that has made human rights abuses in Xinjiang as a focus. As many as 1 million Muslim ethnic Uyghurs are believed to have been arbitrarily held in camps in the far western Chinese region, and credible reports of torture, sexual abuse, and forced sterilization have emerged.
China has denied all allegations of the abuses. At first, it denied the existence of the camps; however, over time it reluctantly acknowledged them, describing them as reeducation centers.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) announced Tuesday that those targeted by the sanctions include Nadine Maenza, the committee chairwoman; Nury Turkel, the deputy chairman; and committee members James Carr and Anurima Bhargava, according to the Associated Press.
The sanctioned individuals will be unable to visit China, Hong Kong, or Macau, and they will be forbidden from doing business with Chinese nationals or entities, said Zhao. He added that any assets of theirs in the country will be frozen, though it remains unclear whether they hold any.
It’s not the first time China has placed sanctions on USCIRF members. Former Commissioner Johnnie Moore was sanctioned in May after the U.S. Department of State released its annual report on international religious freedom, according to the South China Morning Post.
The U.S. has banned imports from Xinjiang that cannot be proven to have been made without coerced labor. U.S. officials, along with their British, Canadian, and Australian counterparts, will be staying away from the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics as part of a diplomatic boycott.
China’s new sanctions are a direct response to ones put in place by the U.S. against former Xinjiang regional chairman Shohrat Zakir and his successor Erken Tuniyaz — both ethnic Uyghurs themselves — on Dec. 10 for their supervision of rights abuses.
