Beijing announces sanctions against American and Canadian personalities

China announced on Saturday sanctions against three personalities and one entity from Canada and the United States, in response to sanctions imposed earlier this week by these countries in the face of the treatment of its Uyghur minority. Two members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Gayle Manchin and Tony Perkins, as well as Canadian MP Michael Chong and a Canadian parliamentary commission on human rights are barred from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and in Macao, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

“They will burn their fingers”

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the United States and Canada are imposing sanctions “on the basis of rumors and disinformation.” Sanctioned officials, who are also prohibited from doing business with Chinese citizens and institutions, “must stop political manipulation on Xinjiang-related issues, stop meddling in China’s internal affairs in any way. either “, indicated the ministry. “Otherwise, they will burn their fingers,” warns the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada on Monday imposed coordinated sanctions against past and current leaders in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing has imposed drastic police surveillance for several years, and Beijing immediately retaliated with sanctions against European and British figures.

According to studies published by American and Australian institutes, refuted by Beijing, at least a million Uyghurs were interned in “camps” in Xinjiang, in northwest China, and some subjected to “forced labor” , especially in cotton fields. Washington believes that the repression of this Muslim minority constitutes “genocide”. Earlier this week, French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann (Socialists & Democrats group), who has been involved in defending the Uyghurs, was banned from China.