Ottawa: (HRNW) Canada’s parliament on Wednesday unanimously passed a motion to take in 10,000 Uyghur refugees who fled China but are now facing pressure to return.
The move builds on a February 2021 move by Canadian lawmakers to label Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in its northwestern Xinjiang territory as genocide.
Rights groups believe at least one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in internment camps in the region, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilizing women and imposing forced labor.
Tens of thousands have fled.
And according to backbench MP Sameer Zuberi, who sponsored the motion, at least 1,600 have been detained in other countries at China’s behest or forcibly repatriated.
At a news conference Zuberi noted that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet voted in support of the motion, signaling the government’s “intent to make this happen” even though it is nonbinding.