US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo fired a fresh salvo at China on Thursday, saying
it remains to be the “gravest threat” to the future of religious freedom as he
continued his tirade in Beijing during a hectic Asian tour.

Making
China the focal point, Pompeo has so far visited India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives,
Indonesia and is scheduled to visit Vietnam on Friday, AFP reported.

In Indonesia,
which has the world’s largest population of Muslims, Pompeo slammed China’s
treatment of the minority community of Uighur Muslims.

“The gravest threat to the future of religious freedom is the Chinese Communist
Party’s war against people of all faiths: Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and
Falun Gong practitioners alike,” Pompeo said in an address to the Muslim organisation
of Nahdlatul Ulama.

Labelling China’s Communist Party as “atheist”, Pompeo said it tries to convince the world that its treatment of Uighur Muslims is necessary for counter-terrorism to alleviate poverty.

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Activists
and rights groups have claimed over a million Uighur Muslims are being held in
camps in the north-west Xinjiang region, as the President Xi Jinping-led government
forces their integration into the Chinese community and erase their Islamic
heritage.

On the
other hand, China has dismissed the allegations and has downplayed the numbers,
claiming the camps are vocational centres to impart skills so as to prevent the
allure of Islamic radicalism following a series of attacks.

“But we
know that there is no counter-terrorism justification in forcing Uighur Muslims
to eat pork during Ramadan, or destroying a Muslim cemetery,” Pompeo said.

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“There is
no poverty-alleviation justification for forced sterilisations, or taking
children away from their parents to be re-educated in state-run boarding
schools,” he added.

He also
dismissed what he said were Beijing’s claims of “fantastic tales of happy
Uighurs”.

“The
Chinese Communist Party has tried to convince Indonesians to look away from the
torments your fellow Muslims are suffering, search your hearts. Look at the
facts,” he said.

“Think
about what you know of how an authoritarian government treats those who resist
its rule.”

With China being
Indonesia’s biggest trade partner, any criticism aimed towards Beijing’s
treatment of Uighur Muslims have been muted in the archipelago.