STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish prosecutors have requested the detention of a man suspected of spying on ethnic Uyghurs for China, the prosecution authority said on Wednesday.
“The man is suspected of having illegally collected information and intelligence on people in the Uyghur environment on behalf of the Chinese intelligence service,” Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.
The prosecution authority declined to give more detail on the case.
The Chinese embassy in Sweden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group of about 10 million people who live in China’s far western Xinjiang region.
In 2022, a landmark United Nations report said that China’s “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity.
Beijing denies any abuse and has accused Western countries of interference and peddling lies.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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