MEPs call for sanctions on Chinese officials for Uighur camps

The European Union should consider slapping targeted sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the repression of the Uighur ethnic group in the country's west, EU lawmakers said Thursday.

The European Parliament called on Beijing to close internment camps in Xinjiang province, where hundreds of thousands are held for "re-education."

Evidence shows that Uighurs and other mainly Muslim minorities face "arbitrary detention, torture, egregious restrictions on religious practice and extensive digitized surveillance," the lawmakers said in a statement, urging EU capitals to take action.

EU leaders can decide to apply sanctions, but the EU legislature has no power to do so.

China is the European Union's second trading partner by volume, but relations have been tested by Beijing's policy in Xinjiang and amid unrest in Hong Kong, among other developments.

Beijing claims it is countering the threat of terrorism and separatism, and that the camps are "vocational education and training schools."

EU policy has so far not succeeded in getting Beijing to improve its human rights record, the statement from the European Parliament continued.

The EU's top foreign affairs official Josep Borrell said Wednesday he would "continue to call on China to uphold its national and international obligations and to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms."

The EU legislature awarded its highest rights accolade, the Sakharov prize, to jailed Uighur activist Ilham Tohti on Wednesday. His daughter Jewher Tohti accepted the prize in his place, and urged parliamentarians to use their laws to hold Chinese officials accountable.