China has replaced Chen Quanguo, who served as the Communist Party chief in the Xinjiang region, local media reported.
The Xinjiang region in western China is home to Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and other traditionally Muslim minority groups. Chen, in his post since 2016, oversaw a security crackdown against ethnic minorities, under the garb of fighting religious extremism.
Ma Xingrui, governor of the coastal economic powerhouse Guangdong province, has been appointed as the new party chief in the province, Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday.
Chen Quanguo, who no longer serves as secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee (XUAR) of the CPC, will be given another appointment, according to the news agency.
Chen is considered as the person behind the draconian security apparatus in Tibet and a mastermind behind the camps in Xinjiang which incarcerate over a million Uyghur minorities. Last year, he was sanctioned by the US for serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
"XUAR is the regional government of Xinjiang and falls under the governance of the PRC. Chen Quanguo (Chen) is the Party Secretary of the XUAR, a position he was appointed to in 2016, following Chen's notorious history of intensifying security operations in the Tibetan Autonomous Region to tighten control over the Tibetan ethnic minorities," US treasury department had said in a release.
Last month, several Billboards were put in the streets of London demanding the arrest of Chen Quanguo. The message on the boards urged the United Kingdom to act against the Chinese leader for the repression of Uyghurs and Tibetan communities.
( With inputs from ANI )
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