當年今日
關於我們

Chinese embassy in France calls Xinjiang detention camp whistleblower an ‘actress’

蘋果日報 2021/06/02 06:50


China’s embassy in France has accused an ethnic Kazakh whistleblower from reeducation camps in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang as an “actress” hired by anti-China forces.
The embassy sought to discredit the ethnic Kazakh Chinese national, Sayragul Sauytbay, after she recounted abuses and torture she had witnessed in Xinjiang’s internment camps during an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde last month.
Sauytbay, 44, now lives in Sweden. She alleged that officers in the camps had raped women from ethnic minority groups, and memories of the scenes made her unable to sleep at night. Sauytbay said she worked as a language instructor in the camps between 2017 and 2018.
On Monday, the Chinese embassy refuted Sauytbay’s claims about the “training centers,” China’s term for the internment camps. It said that her allegations were falsified and she had lied about her qualifications.
“[Sauytbay] claimed that she had been a doctor. In fact, she only attended nursing classes in Xinjiang’s Ili nursing school and was never a doctor,” the embassy said in a statement.
“She never worked in training centers and was never treated with any compulsory measures. Her depiction of the conditions in the training centers is entirely a fabrication.”
The embassy went on to suggest that Sauytbay was an “actress” whom anti-China forces had engaged in their campaign to smear the country. “They are willing to act as their pawns in order to obtain refugee status and material gains,” it said.
Sauytbay fled to Kazakhstan in March 2018 and was arrested by local authorities for illegal entry. Kazakh courts later found Sauytbay guilty of using forged documents to enter the country, but allowed her to stay on in view of risks she might face in China.
Click here for Chinese version
---------------------------------
Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE
To download the latest version,
Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play