Newcastle will cut ties with its sister city in China over the country’s “horrific” human rights abuses.
City leaders have decided to sever their relationship with Taiyuan, which has been twinned with Newcastle since the 1980s, and condemned the Chinese Communist regime’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Councillors agreed to the move on Wednesday night after being urged by the student-led Newcastle Stands with Hong Kong (NSWHK) group to terminate the agreement, as part of a Global Detwin with China campaign.
Liberal Democrat representative Wendy Taylor told a council meeting that at least a million Uyghurs have been forcibly detained in so-called “re-education” camps in China and that survivors have reported incidents of rape, torture, and forced sterilisation, while evidence of organ harvesting has also been presented to the United Nations. The Dene and South Gosforth councillor said that the Chinese government is “not concerned with upholding the universal values we uphold”, adding: “Their horrific abuse of human rights is totally unacceptable.”
