Northern Ireland’s political leaders should use their voices to speak out against human rights abuses in China.

That’s the call from Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland director, ahead of the screening of a special film in Belfast on Saturday that tells the story of China’s persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority community in the Xinjiang region.

Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland director, said:

“Stormont ministers regularly meet with Chinese government officials but consistently fail to raise human rights concerns, despite being fully aware of the atrocious record of abuses committed by Chinese authorities.

“This includes the mass internment and torture of the Uyghur population. An estimated one million members of the Muslim community have been detained in camps and prisons in Xinjiang, northwest China.

“Our political leaders have a responsibility to speak about this when they have the opportunity to have representatives of the Chinese government sitting in front of them. »

Amnesty recently revealed that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister expressed no concerns about China’s human rights record when they met the Chinese ambassador at Stormont Castle in May. This year.

Corrigan spoke before the Premiere in Northern Ireland of documentary movie All static and noisewhich explores the ongoing atrocities in China and tell the story by Ilham Tohti, an economist currently serving the tenth year of a life sentence for his peaceful work to bring Uyghurs and Han people together in dialogue.

The film screening will take place on Saturday November 2 at 3 p.m. has The MAC, followed by a round table featuring the film’s director David Novack, Patrick Corrigan of Amnesty and Clive Corry, Action Trauma Network. This event is free but reservations are required here.