BRUSSELS, July 1: The European Parliament's delegation for relations with China Wednesday condemned the new revelations about campaigns in China to suppress birth rates of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province.

"We are deeply shocked by the newest revelations about the Chinese Communist Party's massive campaign to suppress Uyghur birth-rates in Xinjiang. The reports about forced sterilizations and abortions as well as severe sanctions against birth control violations are of an unprecedented atrocity and further corroborate the assessment that we may be witnessing the implementation of a genocide," said the chair of the delegation Reinhard Butikore and the first vice chair of the delegation Evelyne Gebhardt in a joint statement.

They noted that the European Parliament condemned the massive detention of Uyghurs in political 're-education camps' in Xinjiang in its resolution in December 2019.

"The new findings underline the urgent need for an independent investigation of the situation and the need for a sanctions regime for human rights violations," said the statement.
They called on the European Commission, the EU High Representative and the EU Member States "to univocally condemn this practice and act swiftly to find an adequate response." (KUNA)