Nineteen people from China's Uyghur Muslim ethnic group filed a criminal complaint with a Turkish prosecutor on Tuesday against Chinese officials, accusing them of committing genocide, torture, rape and crimes against humanity. - REUTERS
The complaint included 116 people who are still detained in China and was filed against 112 people, including members of the Chinese Communist Party, directors and officers at labor camps, as well as those who allegedly raped some of the detainees.
Medine Nazimi, one of those who filed the criminal complaint, said her sister had been taken away to a "concentration camp" in 2017 and she had not been heard from since.
Lawyer Gulden Sonmez said the complaint was filed since international bodies had not acted against China, which has been accused of facilitating forced labour by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities in camps since 2016.
China initially denied the camps existed, but has since said they are vocational centers and are designed to combat extremism.
It denies all accusations of abuse.
About 50,000 Uyghurs - with whom Turks share ethnic, religious and linguistic connections - are believed to reside in Turkey, the largest Uyghur diaspora outside of Central Asia.