The claim made by the European Parliament that the Chinese government was using COVID-19 containment measures to systematically "suppress" Uygurs in Xinjiang is false, Xu Guixiang, a spokesperson for the People's Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said in a press release on Friday.

He expressed his hope that the international society will not believe such "nonsense," saying the coronavirus outbreak that started in August is a significant public health emergency with the "fastest spread, the most extensive coverage, the largest number of infections, and the most difficult containment situation" in the history of Xinjiang, and has caused serious impacts on people's health, safety, work and normal life.

During this period of time, all levels of government in Xinjiang gave priority to ensuring and improving people's livelihood, listened carefully to the people of all ethnic groups, earnestly carried out work to ensure smooth logistics, stable supply chain and agricultural production, and worked hard to solve people's urgent problems such as food, clothing, housing, transportation, medical care and medicine, Xu noted, adding these efforts effectively protected the lives of people of all ethnic groups.

Xu stressed that people of all ethnic groups, including Uygurs, were very clear about the situation and had cooperated with local governments to prevent and control the coronavirus, noting that Uygur people and local governments worked in synergy and forged a strong sense of community during the process.

"It must be pointed out that the spread of the virus follows objective rules and is not targeted, let alone targeted at any ethnic group," Xu said, adding there is no such thing as "suppression" against Uygurs and the European Parliament was fabricating disinformation, which goes against common sense.