US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted China yesterday over its treatment of Uighur Muslims during a Vatican conference taking place amid a political crisis back home, Strait Times reports.
Pompeo reserved his toughest criticism for China in a keynote speech at a Vatican conference on religious freedom.
"When the state rules absolutely, it demands its citizens worship government, not God. That's why China has put more than one million Uighur Muslims... in internment camps and is why it throws Christian pastors in jail," he said.
China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in remote Xinjiang that it describes as "vocational training centres" to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.
"Today, we must gird ourselves for another battle in defence of human dignity and religious freedom. The stakes are arguably higher than they were even during the Cold War," Pompeo said at the conference organised by the US embassy to the Vatican.