A Chinese official who was shown a video allegedly depicting Uighur Muslims blindfolded and driven to trains insists that he “doesn’t know” where the material came from.
Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to the UK, was pressured by BBC presenter Andrew Marr to explain the clip during a television interview on Sunday.
“Let’s look at some very disturbing drone images that have been widely shared around the world. This is, almost certainly, about North China, about Xinjiang. Can you tell us what’s going on here? Marr asked, while showing a video that appeared in 2019.
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After six seconds of silence, Liu says “I can’t see, uh, you know this view.”
“May I ask you why people are kneeling, blindfolded, shaved, and being driven to trains in modern China?” Marr continues. “What’s going on there?”
“I don’t know where you get this video from,” Liu replied. “You know, sometimes you transfer prisoners to any country.”
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This screenshot purportedly shows hundreds of chained and blindfolded prisoners believed to be from China’s Uighur Muslim minority, according to reports.
(War on fear / Twitter)
Marr later told Liu that the images were “authenticated by Western intelligence agencies and Australian experts, who say they are Uyghur people being pushed onto the trains and taking off.”
UN experts have said that at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims are detained in detention centers in Xinjiang, according to Reuters. China, which initially denied the camps existed, calls them training centers aimed at eradicating terrorism and extremism, as well as providing people with new skills. Detainees are allegedly subject to forced labor, forced abortion, sterilization, and other abuses.
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But Liu called the persecution allegations “false” during Sunday’s interview, arguing that the population of the Xinjiang region, where the minority is located, has doubled in the past four decades to around 11 million people.
However, Marr, citing data from the Chinese government, responded that population growth among Uighur jurisdictions in that area has plummeted 84 percent between 2015 and 2018.
Fox News’ David Aaro contributed to this report.
