In the declaration drafted by Germany and presented at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, 39 predominantly Western countries denounced China for gross human rights violations in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang and the autonomous region of Tibet, and for limiting political and personal freedoms in Hong Kong. 

In the statement endorsed by the UK, the US and many EU countries, Germany’s ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen, decried the “widespread surveillance [that] disproportionately continues to target Uighur and other minorities” as well as “forced labor and forced birth control including sterilization.” He also criticized the existence of political re-education camps in Xinjiang, where more than a million people had reportedly been detained.