Sao Paulo, January 4 Electric car maker Tesla, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has come under fire after it announced the opening of a showroom in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, a Chinese region accused of human rights abuses against the predominantly Muslim ethnic Uighur minority.
This was announced on the last day of 2021 on the popular Chinese social network Weibo. The place is seen as a scene of abuse and repression against ethnic and religious minorities.
Today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the advocacy group for Muslims in the United States, said on TwitterBy doing business in China’s Xinjiang province, where millions of Uyghur Muslims are held in concentration camps and forced labor facilities, Tesla supports genocide.
But China rejects accusations of abuse and forced labor in Xinjiang. According to the country’s authorities, Uyghurs are being transferred to re-education camps against religious extremism and terrorism.
A report released in March 2021 by more than 50 international law experts stated that the situation experienced by the minority in the country could be described as genocide. In addition, there are reports of former detainees from these camps who reported abuse.
Because of the accusations, the region has become the scene of a geopolitical conflict between Beijing and Washington, harming several businesses in the region.
The US government has signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of products from Xinjiang. In addition, the United States, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, will implement a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February this year as a form of protest.
Tesla sought not to respond to requests for contact made by Reuters news agency.
Text: Fernanda de Almeida
Editing: Stephanie Rigamonti and Alain Ravaniani
Photo: Vinicius Martins/Move
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