THE UK Government has announced sanctions against Chinese officials over the persecution of Uighur Muslims. 

Dominic Raab told MPs this afternoon that Britain was joining dozens of other countries in imposing financial penalties on four Chinese Government officials, as well the Xinjang security body. 

Mr Raab, the UK Foriegn Secretary, said that asset freezes and travel bans were being imposed against the officials by the UK as well as the EU, Canada and the US, as a result of "gross human rights violations in Xinjiang".

he Foreign Secretary said the abuse of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and the international community “cannot simply look the other way”.

He told the Commons: “State control in the region is systemic. Over a million people have been detained without trial, there are widespread claims of torture and rape in the camps, based on first-hand survivor testimony.

“People are detained for having too many children, for praying too much, for having a beard or wearing a headscarf, for having the wrong thoughts.

“I’m sure the whole House will join me in condemning such appalling violations of the most basic human rights.”

Mr Raab added: “It’s the largest mass detention of an ethnic or religious group since the Second World War and I believe one thing is clear – the international community cannot simply look the other way.”

In a statement to MPs Mr Raab said: “I think it’s clear that by acting with our partners – 30 of us in total – we are sending the clearest message to the Chinese government, that the international community will not turn a blind eye to such serious and systematic violations of basic human rights and that we will act in concert to hold those responsible to account.”

The timing of Mr Raab’s announcement comes with the Government under pressure to take a tougher stance on Beijing.

The Government faced a potential Tory revolt with backbenchers prepared to support an amendment to the Trade Bill aimed at preventing ministers signing a deal with countries involved in genocide.

The latest change tabled by the human rights campaigner Lord Alton of Liverpool would establish a parliamentary panel of judicial experts which could determine whether any proposed signatory to a trade agreement with the UK had committed genocide.

The Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, questioned why the UK was not labelling China’s actions as genocide.

Mr Tugendhat said: “My understanding is that the attempted destruction of a people or its culture, in whole or in part, constitutes genocide.”

Mr Raab has repeatedly insisted that genocide is a matter to be determined by relevant courts.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called for tougher action and said “we are dancing elaborately around the whole idea of genocide when it is quite clear that is what is going on”.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy welcomed the sanctions announced by Mr Raab but questioned why it had taken the Foreign Secretary so long to act given the evidence of abuse against the Uighurs has been “known about for years”.

Ms Nandy said the timing of this is “grubby and it is cynical”, aimed at averting a Tory revolt.

“It is designed to send a signal, first and foremost, not to the Chinese government but to his own backbenchers,” she said.

“It is motivated primarily by a desire to protect the Government not the Uighur.”

Mr Raab accused her of “suggesting the concerted and unprecedented action of 30 countries is somehow tied up with the UK’s domestic legislative timetable”.