Uyghur rights group calls on hotel chains not to ‘sanitise’ China abuses in Xinjiang

Tourists visit Sayram Lake in Xinjiang, north-western China. Last year the area recorded 300 million visitors, according to state media. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

Almost 200 international hotels are operating or planning to open in Xinjiang, despite calls from human rights groups for global corporations not to help “sanitise” the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the region, a report has said.

The report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) identified 115 operational hotels which the organisation said “benefit from a presence in the Uyghur region”. At least another 74 were in various stages of construction or planning, the report said. The UHRP said some of the hotels also had exposure or links of concern to forced labour and labour transfer programmes.