"The contents of this report regarding China and the Pompeo statement do not take facts into account, are full of ideological prejudices, and contain the rampant denigrating of the Central Committee’s policies. This is a gross interference in the internal affairs of China, which the Chinese side strongly opposes", Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news briefing in Beijing.
She went on to stress that religious freedom is guaranteed to all citizens in China and that over 200 million people practice 5,500 religions in the country.
A day prior, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unveiled the Commission on International Religious Freedom's annual reports on "countries of particular concern", which included reports on mostly adversarial nations. Pompeo said that repression against all religions continues to intensify, expressing concern over the mass detention of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, as well as continued repressions against Tibetan Buddhists, Christians and Falun Gong.
China has long been denying numerous reports that up to one million people have been forcefully incarcerated in Uighur reeducation camps.
The Chinese authorities in recent years have allowed select reporters into the camps in Xinjiang, where handpicked groups of the Uighur minority people said they were not being kept against their will and the camp stay is helping rid them of radical Islamic views.