'Uighur genocide policy comes from China's leaders'

Charles Parton, a former British diplomat in China, has said the detention of Uighurs in camps in the Xinjiang region, is a policy that comes from China's leaders. They were responsible for what was undoubtedly genocide, he explained.

He told BBC World News: "I have to say that the responsibility for that lies at the very top. This sort of enormous policy change that happened in Xinjiang would have been commissioned, considered and approved by the seven man Politburo Standing Committee which Xi Jinping heads up."

China claims the camps are for the "re-education" of the Uighurs and other minorities. It says reports of mass detention and forced sterilisation are "lies and absurd allegations".