US urges China to release detainees to mark Tiananmen

WASHINGTON

The U.S. called on China Monday to release all political prisoners ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said such a step would “begin to demonstrate the Communist Party’s willingness to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

"We call on China to release all those held for seeking to exercise these rights and freedoms, halt the use of arbitrary detention, and reverse counterproductive policies that conflate terrorism with religious and political expression,” Pompeo said.

Somewhere between hundreds and thousands of protesters were killed when China deployed tanks to stamp out the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Beijing has never released an official casualty toll for the massacre, and Pompeo urged Chinese authorities "to make a full, public accounting of those killed or missing to give comfort to the many victims of this dark chapter of history".

The top U.S. diplomat further alleged that Beijing is "methodically attempting to strangle Uighur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith, including through the detention of more than one million members of the Muslim minority group".

"Even as the party builds a powerful surveillance state, ordinary Chinese citizens continue to seek to exercise their human rights, organize independent unions, pursue justice through the legal system, and simply express their views, for which many are punished, jailed, and even tortured," he said.

China’s Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uighurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45% of Xinjiang’s population, has long accused China’s authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.

China stepped up its restrictions on the region in the past two years, banning men from growing beards and women from wearing veils and introducing what many experts see as the world’s most extensive electronic surveillance program, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of “political re-education” camps, according to U.S. officials and UN experts.