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China takes steps against Canada institutions, individuals over Uyghurs, Tibet 


FILE - A Chinese national flag flies at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 14, 2018. China is taking countermeasures against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.
FILE - A Chinese national flag flies at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 14, 2018. China is taking countermeasures against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.

China said on Sunday it was taking countermeasures against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.

The measures, which took effect on Saturday, include asset freezes and bans on entry and the targets include Canada's Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada-Tibet Committee, China's foreign ministry announced on its website.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labor in camps. Beijing denies any abuses.

China seized control of Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a "peaceful liberation" from feudalistic serfdom. International human rights groups and exiles, however, have routinely condemned what they call China's oppressive rule in Tibetan areas.

For the two institutions, China said it is freezing their "movable property, immovable property and other types of property within the territory of China." It is freezing the property in China of 15 people in the Uyghur institution and five on the Tibet committee, banning them from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macao.

Calls to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing went unanswered. Reuters did not receive an immediate response from the rights groups or Global Affairs Canada.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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