DISINFO: Like Kazakhstan, Xinjiang is under the US attack
SUMMARY
In analysing the events in Kazakhstan, we shouldn’t forget that it shares a border with Xinjiang, another controversial territory that is also being attacked by the US.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aiming to downplay China’s human rights violations in the Xinjiang region against the Uyghur minority, in this case by framing international criticism as a “US attack”.
Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in Northwest China is not under the US attack. Instead, the broader international community is increasingly concerned about human rights violations, against the Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim populations in the region.
There is an ongoing debate on whether these crimes against the Uyghur minority fit into the legal term of genocide, as the Parliaments of Canada, The Netherlands and France have officially stated, but there is no doubt about their severity.
The reference to Kazakhstan is an attempt to portray recent unrest in the country as the result of a foreign destabilisation plot (a claim already debunked), as part of a wider disinformation campaign to justify the Russian-led intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
See another example of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that allegations about repression and concentration camps in China are exaggerations aiming to stop its influence and are not backed by any evidence, that human rights are a Trojan horse in the West’s hybrid warfare, or that the West is trying to eliminate Russia as a geopolitical actor under the pretext of 'human rights'.
This disinformation story appeared in the same TV programme as the claims that “The US tried to destabilise Kazakhstan”, that “Saudi Arabia helped the West to destabilise Kazakhstan with jihadist terrorists”, and that “US and Western NGOs are behind the unrest in Kazakhstan”.