FM: CNN report on Uyghur woman a 'deliberate lie'

US media's report of China's Uyghur woman Mihrigul Tursun is a "totally deliberate lie," and foreign media and the US government should cease tarnishing China's ethnic policy lest they embarrass themselves, said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying [Photo: fmprc.gov.cn]

In a Sunday report published by CNN, Tursun claimed her son had died in Urumqi Children's Hospital in Xinjiang in 2015, and that they had been victims of "Beijing's growing crackdown on Muslim majority Uyghur" in Xinjiang.

She also said she witnessed the deaths of nine of her fellow detainees while in jail, reported CNN.

However, the report was slammed with solid evidence by Hua Chunying, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

The CNN reporter filed an interview request to China's Foreign Ministry on Friday asking for a response to Tursun's claims. "CNN evidently didn't want the verified result from us and published in a report on Sunday," Hua said at a Monday news briefing.

Tursun has three children, Muezi, Muaizi and Ailinna, with her Egyptian husband.

Hua said that Muezi was sent to the Urumqi children's hospital for the durations of January, May and November 2016, due to pneumonia, hydrocephalus and other illnesses. Record shows Tursun and her husband took the child out of China in April 2018.

Tursun did not register a household for Muaizi in China and brought him from China to Turkey in January 2016.

Tursun is a resident in Qiemo county in the Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture. She gave birth to one daughter and two sons in Egypt, after her marriage to her Egyptian husband in 2012. Muezi and Ailinna secured Chinese households in October 2015.

After Tursun submitted the renouncement of her Chinese citizenship in March 2018, the Qiemo county's public security bureau in turn renounced the households of her two children. One month after this occurred, Tursun left China with her husband and two children.

In April 2017, Tursun was detained by Qiemo police under accusation of inciting hatred and discrimination among ethnic minority groups, said Hua, noting that the police only detained her for 20 days. She was released after it was discovered that she was infected with contagious diseases.

Tursun was entirely free apart from her 20-day detention, and record suggests she made 11 trips outside China during 2010 to 2017, to countries including Egypt, the UAE and Turkey.

Tursun was never arrested in Urumqi and never went to jail, nor has she been sent to any vocational training and education centers. Why, then, does she claim she witnessed the deaths of nine detainees and that she was placed in a cell with 50 other women.

In conclusion, Hua said that CNN's report of Tursun is totally fake, and went so far as to say that it is a deliberate lie.

"I would like to emphasize that authenticity is vital to the reporting of news," Hua said.

Recently, much of western media's reporting on Xinjiang seems to involve many "real-name" sources, which have subsequently been confirmed as nonexistent or false, said Hua, urging the foreign media to uphold their reputation and to stop spreading fake news.

Tursun's "experience" has become important evidence for US Senator Marco Rubio's "Uyghur Human Rights Police Act of 2018", Hua said.

China doesn't accept the US Senator's groundless accusation and his slandering of the Chinese government and China's ethnic policy, said Hua, warning that the US should stop such farces to protect the US's reputation.