BBC host Andrew Marr confronted China’s ambassador to the UK with drone footage of bound and blindfolded Uighur prisoners being herded onto trains.
An Associated Press investigation found that the Chinese government is engaging in “demographic genocide,” using birth control, forced abortions, and mass imprisonment against Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
Confronted with the “very disturbing” video during an appearance on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Liu Xiaoming downplayed it as a possible prisoner transfer.
“Can I ask you why people are kneeling, blindfolded, and shaven, and being led to trains in modern China. What is going on?” Marr asked.
“I do not know where you get this videotape,” Xiaoming responded. “Sometimes you have a transfer of prisons and prisoners, in any country.”
Marr continued to press Xiaoming on the video’s contents.
WATCH:
#Marr asks Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming to explain footage from China of handcuffed and blindfolded detained peoplehttps://t.co/PkjcTsClEX pic.twitter.com/RSbrSaOAPT
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) July 19, 2020
“Let me tell you this, the so-called Western intelligence making these false accusations against China, they say ‘one million Uighur has been persecuted,'” the ambassador said. “You know how much population Xinjiang has? Forty years ago it was five million, now it is 11 million people and people say we have ethnic cleansing, but the population has doubled in 40 years.”
“According to your own local government statistics, the population growth in Uighur jurisdictions in that area has fallen by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018,” Marr pressed. “84 percent!” (RELATED: Pompeo Demands China End ‘Horrific’ And ‘Dehumanizing’ Forced Abortions, Sterilizations Of Uighurs)
“That’s not right,” said Xiaoming. “I gave you this figure as the Chinese ambassador. In the past 40 years, the Uighur population increased, the population in Xinjiang increased to double. The population doubled. So there is no so-called restriction of the population, no so-called forced abortions and so on.”
