Canada weighs calling China’s treatment of Uygurs a genocide
- PM Justin Trudeau says there is ‘no question’ that there have been significant human rights abuses reported coming out of Xinjiang
- The Trump administration made a genocide determination last month, and Biden’s top diplomat has said he agrees with the label, vowing to stay tough on China
Canada and other nations are considering labelling China’s treatment of its Uygur minority a genocide, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.
This comes after Donald Trump’s outgoing administration last month said Beijing’s incarceration of mostly Muslim minorities in its far western Xinjiang region amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.
“It’s a word that is extremely loaded and is certainly something that we should be looking at in the case of the Uygurs,” Trudeau told a news conference.
“I know the international community is looking very carefully at that and we are certainly among them, and we will not hesitate from being part of the determinations around these sorts of things.”
02:27
US declares China has committed genocide in its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang
He said there was “no question” there had been significant human rights abuses reported coming out of Xinjiang.
“We are extremely concerned about that and have highlighted our concerns many times. But when it comes to the application of the very specific word ‘genocide’, we simply need to ensure that all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed in the processes before a determination like that is made,” Trudeau added.
