Japan gave key inputs on Uyghur clampdown to US, UK amid calls to join 'Five Eyes': Report

As the Japanese government is being urged to join the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing alliance, it recently provided key inputs to the United States and the UK over the Chinese government’s clampdown on Uyghurs, reported Kyodo News citing its source. Japan is on its way to become the ‘sixth eye’ in the Five Eyes alliance that constitutes five nations -  Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the US who have united to elevate their response to the increasing threats by North Korea and China.

A person close to Japan-US bilateral relations reportedly disclosed on December 28 that the Japanese government had provided crucial intelligence to the US and Britain last year on China’s ‘concentration camps’ in the remote area of Xinjiang that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly claimed to be ‘recreational centres’. 

Both the US and the UK have even ramped up their criticism against China over the severe crackdown on Uyghurs in the remote Xinjiang autonomous region. Further, the media outlet’s source also said that it was based on the information gathered by Japan that the US President Donald Trump administration placed a range of sanctions on China citing human rights violations against the Muslim minority including visa limitations on CCP officials. 

This has also fueled the increasing bilateral tensions between China and the US. Even US vice president Mike pence had claimed last year that the “Communist Party imprisoned more than a million Chinese Muslims, including Uyghurs, in internment camps where they endure around-the-clock brainwashing.”

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Uyghur Muslim leaders detained in China

Amid reports of atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in China’s remote area of Xinjiang continue, just last month it emerged that authorities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have reportedly detained hundreds of Muslims imams or religious leaders, as per Uyghur linguist in exile. According to a report by Radio Free Asia, the detention of the religious leaders has created an atmosphere in which the people belonging to the minority are “afraid of dying”. 

While speaking at a webinar hosted by Uyghur Human Rights Project titled 'Where are the Imams? Evidence for mass detention of Uyghur religious figures', a Norway-based activist with International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) Abduweli Ayup informed that based on the interviews with Uyghurs, at least 613 imams were removed from the community in a campaign of extra-legal incarceration that has already seen millions of Uyghur Muslims held in concentration camps since early 2017. 

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