Northern Ireland’s political leaders should use their voices to challenge China’s human rights abuses.

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

 Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Director of Amnesty International, said:

“Stormont Ministers regularly meet with Chinese government representatives, yet consistently fail to raise human rights concerns despite being fully aware of the atrocious record of abuses by the 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 up about this when they have the opportunity of Chinese government officials sitting in front of them.”

Amnesty recently revealed that the First and deputy First Minister failed to raise any concerns over China’s human rights record when they met the Chinese ambassador at Stormont Castle in May this year.

Corrigan was speaking ahead of the Northern Ireland premiere of documentary film All Static & Noise, which explores ongoing atrocities in China and tells the story of Ilham Tohti, an economist now serving the tenth year of a life sentence in prison for his peaceful work bringing Uyghur and Han people together in dialogue.

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