Miami Mayor and GOP presidential hopeful Francis Suarez (R, pictured in Washington, D.C., in 2021) stumbled Tuesday when asked about China's Uyghur Muslim minority, which critics say has suffered under recent indoctrination efforts by China. When asked about the topic, Suarez asked, "What's a Uyghur?" File Photo by Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI |
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June 27 (UPI) -- Republican presidential hopeful Francis Suarez on Tuesday appeared to be unaware of the Uyghur minority that has faced widespread oppression in China.
When asked Tuesday if he would raise the Uyghur issue in his campaign during an interview on the conservative Hugh Hewitt Show, Suarez responded, "What's a Uyghur?"
China's Uyghur population is an ethnic minority that is the subject of human-rights abuses from Beijing.
The Chinese government runs a massive series of internment centers targeting the Muslim minority population. Chinese Communist Party officials often are sent for "home stays" with Uyghur families, forcing them to undergo "political education" and sing patriotic songs in support of the Chinese Communist party.
China's treatment of the Uyghur population has been an important part of U.S. and global criticism toward Beijing in recent years.
Human Rights Watch has condemned the so-called "home stays."
Suarez, who is mayor of Miami, stands out in the field of GOP contenders for the fact that he has said he did not vote for former President Donald Trump, who currently is the favored frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president.
Suarez, 45, became the first Hispanic candidate for the GOP presidential nomination last month when he threw his hat into the ring.
The Uyghur situation in China is one that has attracted bipartisan condemnation in the United States.
"Allegations of patterns of torture, or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence," then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said in 2022.
In a 2022 report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said the "restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights, enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity."
The OHCHR said violations had "far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international standards."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said in the past that China was guilty of "genocide and crimes against humanity" for the way it has dealt with the Uyghurs.