"What is a Uyghur?": Presidential candidate Francis Suarez botches question about China

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is running for president, is being criticized for botching the answer to a question about Uyghurs, an ethnic group being targeted with alleged human rights abuses in China. Podcast host Hugh Hewitt asked Suarez if he'd be talking about the Uyghurs in his campaign, to which the candidate replied: "What's a Uyghur?"

What is a Uyghur?

Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group who are Muslim and native to Xinjiang, China. There are 21.8 million people in the province and 11 million Muslims. China is accused of detaining Uyghurs in camps, sexually abusing women and forcing sterilization. 

Violent riots began in the region in 2009 and the Chinese government began blaming terrorist attacks in the country on Uyghurs. The government says detention facilities, which began popping up in 2017, are for "re-education" and are meant to fight extremism and separatism in the region. 

In 2019, the United Nations estimated more than 1 million Uyghurs were being detained in internment camps. 

Chinese authorities said they were recently ordered to send half of the residents in the area to the camps, according to Radio Free Asia. China also uses surveillance like facial recognition on its population. 

China consistently denies the allegations and earlier this year, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. tweeted the forced sterilization "emancipated" women, making the outlandish claim that the practice helps prevent Uyghur women from becoming "baby-making machines." The tweet was labeled on the platform as violating its rules and was removed.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have called China's treatment of the Uyghurs genocide, making the U.S. the first country in the world to make the designation.

How do you pronounce Uyghur?

After Suarez was stumped by Hewitt's question about the Uyghurs, the mayor said he had homework to do. "I'll look at what a, what was it, what did you call it, a weeble?" Suarez joked. 

Hewitt, a Republican who worked in the Reagan administration, later called Suarez's answer a "swing and a miss."

Suarez tweeted after the show that he is aware of the suffering of the ethnic group. "They are being enslaved because of their faith. China has a deplorable record on human rights and all people of faith suffer there," he wrote. "I didn't recognize the pronunciation my friend Hugh Hewitt used. That's on me."

Uyghur is pronounced "wee-gur." It can also be spelled in different ways: Uighur, Uygur or Uigur. 

Why are people talking about Uyghurs?

After Hewitt told Suarez how Uyghur is pronounced, he told the mayor: "You've got to talk about it every day, okay?"

"I will talk about, I will search Uyghurs. I'm a good learner. I'm a fast learner," Suarez said. 

Many political leaders and human rights organizations have called attention to the alleged human rights abuses the Uyghurs are suffering in China. 

In 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, went into law. The act ensures "goods made with the slave labor of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and elsewhere in the People's Republic of China do not enter the United States."

Ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, 243 nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits signed a letter urging a boycott of the games due to China's alleged human rights violations against the Uyghurs and other groups.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently traveled to China, which Hewitt asked Suarez about. Blinken was there for diplomatic talks with several leaders to try and cool tensions between the countries and, according to the State Department, he raised concerns about China's alleged human rights violations.

In 2022, the United Nations released a report on the alleged human rights violations by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, which it said may "constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity," and that "serious human rights violations have been committed."

The State Department said in a statement the report "deepens and reaffirms our grave concern regarding the ongoing genocide," saying it would continue to work to seek justice for the victims and hold the Chinese government accountable. 

Mike Pompeo, secretary of state under former President Donald Trump, said in 2021 that the administration had been documenting China's actions in the province and found the campaign for repressing Uyghurs and other ethnic groups had dramatically escalated since at least March 2017. Pompeo said the U.S. was calling on China to release all "arbitrarily detained persons" and end their detention and sterilization of ethnic minority groups. He said he also called on the State Department to continue its investigation in Xinjiang. 

In:
• Uyghurs

Caitlin O'Kane

Caitlin O'Kane is a digital content producer covering trending stories for CBS News and its good news brand, The Uplift.