CBS News Miami
MIAMI (CNN) — Miami mayor and 2024 Republican presidential prospect Francis Suarez indicated in an job interview on Tuesday that he was unfamiliar with the plight of Uyghur Muslims, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in China whose treatment has been the subject of around the globe condemnation for years.
In an job interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio present, the Republican presidential applicant was asked, “Will you be conversing about the Uyghurs in your campaign?”
Suarez responded, “The what?”
“The Uyghurs,” Hewitt reported, prompting Suarez to ask, “What’s a Uyghur?”
At the finish of the job interview, Suarez advised Hewitt, “You gave me homework, Hugh. I will appear at – what was it? What’d you connect with it, a weeble?”
In a assertion to CNN Tuesday afternoon, Suarez denied that he was unaware of the Uyghur condition and the human rights abuses China is accused of committing.
“Of training course, I am effectively conscious of the suffering of the Uyghurs in China. They are becoming enslaved since of their religion. China has a deplorable history on human rights and all persons of faith suffer there. I did not understand the pronunciation my close friend Hugh Hewitt utilised,” Suarez mentioned in a statement to CNN.
China’s therapy of Uyghur Muslims has been the topic of a excellent offer of intercontinental condemnation. In 2021, the Condition Department officially decided China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjing. The subsequent yr, the UN High Commissioner for Human Legal rights identified China’s remedy of Uyghurs constituted “crimes towards humanity.”
China denies allegations of this sort of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. It has insisted that its reeducation camps are needed for protecting against spiritual extremism and terrorism in the area, which is household to about 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority that communicate a language intently related to Turkish and have their very own unique culture.
The predicament has attained the two most the latest presidents of the United States. Then-President Donald Trump in 2020 signed a invoice that aimed to punish China and officers dependable for carrying out torture and human legal rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim populace via sanctions, together with asset blocking, visa revocation and ineligibility for entry into the United States.
Moreover, President Joe Biden signed a legislation in 2021 banning imports from China’s Xinjiang area in reaction to the country’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
Suarez’s gaffe on Tuesday was rapidly pounced on by fellow 2024 GOP hopeful Nikki Haley.
“We promised under no circumstances once again to seem away from genocide and it can be taking place appropriate now in China. And no just one is declaring nearly anything due to the fact they’re also terrified of China,” Haley mentioned at an American Business Institute party. “Component of American foreign plan ought to normally be that we struggle for human legal rights for all individuals. And what is actually happening with the Uyghurs is disgusting. And the truth that the complete globe is ignoring it is shameful.”
It truly is not unheard of for presidential candidates whose political professions have focused generally on domestic affairs to make embarrassing mistakes when pressed about foreign policy. Suarez’s response on Tuesday evoked a comparable flub produced by Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson in 2016 when, questioned about the Syrian refugee disaster in Aleppo – which at the time was a dominant tale in American media – he replied, “And what is Aleppo?”
