Xinjiang officials refute UN rights report claims

Accusations of ethnic discrimination, vague definition of terrorism not true

The terrorist attacks that previously took place in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region were not the result of the growth of the Han Chinese population or of the ethnic discrimination portrayed in a recent United Nations report, a spokesman for the regional government said.

For a certain period, terrorist and extremist forces at home and abroad had been instigating ethnic hatred in Xinjiang in the name of identity and religion. They lured people into violent terrorist activities and caused unrest, Xu Guixiang, a spokesman of the regional government said at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday.

On Aug 31, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, issued an assessment of human rights concerns in Xinjiang, including ethnic discrimination.