Xinjiang Police Files: Olaf Scholz criticizes oppression of Uyghurs in China

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Olaf Scholz at the World Economic Forum in Davos

Photo: ARND WIEGMANN / REUTERS

The Xinjiang Police Files, which SPIEGEL and its research partners made public, have sparked international outrage.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has now also spoken out.

He criticized the treatment of Muslim Uyghurs in China as a violation of human rights.

The world should not “ignore when human rights are violated, as we are seeing in Xinjiang,” said Scholz at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Scholz was reacting to new reports about the brutal oppression of the Muslim Uyghur minority in China.

DER SPIEGEL and its research partners had published evidence of the mass internment of Uyghurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Photos, speeches and instructions from the authorities documented, among other things, torture and the existence of a shoot-to-kill order.

Beijing dismissed the accusations as the “lie of the century”.

In Davos, Scholz expressed concern about China's growing claim to power.

The People's Republic is now undoubtedly a "global player," said the Chancellor.

But she shouldn't "derive the claim of Chinese hegemony in Asia and beyond" from this, he said.

There is just as little need to "isolate China," said Scholz.

Rather, the country must be embedded in a multilateral and rule-based world order.

international horror

The federal government had already announced on Wednesday that it would be distancing itself.

Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) said that although the People's Republic is a major trading partner, there are "very relevant problems", including with respect to human rights.

Germany will reduce its dependencies.

The US government was also appalled by the reports.

China must release all those arbitrarily arrested, close internment camps and "end mass incarceration, torture, forced sterilization and the use of forced labour." British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called on China to clarify the allegations.

According to a statement from the British Foreign Office, Truss spoke of “shocking details” about Chinese human rights violations.

asc/dpa/AFP