Putting pressure on “Liberal” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to follow suit, Canada’s Parliament has passed a non-binding motion saying China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China is “genocide”.
The motion which said, “A genocide is currently being carried out against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims” was passed with 266-0 vote in the Canadian Parliament on Monday where Trudeau and his Cabinet abstained from the vote.
The motion brought by the opposition Conservative Party, Canada’s House of Commons voted 266-0 on Monday while Trudeau and his Cabinet abstained from the vote despite most Liberal representatives backing it.
The motion was also amended just before the vote to call on the International Olympics Committee to move the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing if the treatment continues.
Chinese authorities have denied all allegations and have said that the concentration camps are there to provide vocational training and counter-extremism.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden received backlash from American Muslim community, which actively supported him for the presidency during the US elections, after he downplayed the persecution of Uyghur Muslims as part of China’s “different norms”.
Biden made the comments during CNN town hall meeting in which he was asked by the host Anderson Cooper about his recent phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He stated, “I’m not gonna speak out against what he(Xi Jin Ping) is doing in Hong Kong, or what he’s doing with Uyghurs in West China or what he’s doing in Taiwan.” There are “culturally different norms” in every country, he further added, inviting a tsunami of criticism on social media.