AMNESTY ASKS CHINA

OWN UP to mass Muslim detentions, Amnesty asks China.

BEIJING : China must come clean about the fate of an estimated one million minority Muslims swept up in a ''massive crackdown'' in its far western region of Xinjiang, Amnesty International said on Monday.

Beijing has tightened restrictions on Muslim minorities to combat what it calls Islamic extremism and separatist element in Xinjiang. Critics say the drive risks fuelling resentment towards Beijing and further inflaming separatist sentiment.

In a new report, which included testimony from people held in the camps, the international rights group said Beijing had rolled out an ''intensifying government campaign of mas internment, intrusive surveillance, political indoctrination and forced cultural assimilation.''

Up to a million people are detained in internment camps.a United Nations panel on racial discrimination reported last month, with many detained for offences as minor as making contact with family members outside the country or sharing  Islamic holiday greetings on social media.

''Hundreds of thousands of families have been torn apart by this massive crackdown,'' said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationale's east Asia director, in a statement.

''They are desperate to know what has happened to their loved ones and it is time the Chinese authorities give them answers.''

Beijing has denied reports of the camps but evidence is mounting in the form of government documents escapee testimony.

These suggest that Chinese authorities are detaining large groups of people in a network of  extrajudicial camps  for political and cultural indoctrination on a scale unseen since the Maoist era.

Amnesty's report interviewed several former detainees who said they were put in shackles, tortured and made to sing political songs and learn about the Communist Party.

The testimony tallies with the evidence gathered by foreign reporters and rights groups in the past year.

Sweden halts Uighur deportation to China:

Swedish authorities said on Monday they had temporarily halted the deportation of Uighurs to China due to concerns over the situation there.

''Information from several human rights organisations indicates that the situation for Uighurs has deteriorated'' in the western region of  Xinjiang, the Swedish Migration Agency said in a statement obtained by the AFP.

The decision also concerns ''other minority groups from Xinjiang who have received expulsion orders,'' said a spokeswoman for the agency. [AFP]