Japanese sportswear firm Mizuno Corporation has decided to ban cotton sourced from China's Xinjiang region, amid allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against the Uyghur Muslims. The company will discontinue using Xinjiang cotton in its products. China has been rebuked globally for cracking for sending Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and subjecting them to abuse including forced labor.

Earlier this week, the US Customs and Border Protection blocked a shipment of men's shirts for the Uniqlo casual clothing chain in January for allegedly violating an import ban on items containing cotton sourced from Xinjiang. The US banned imports of cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang in January, and Canada and the United Kingdom followed suit. Many international brands, including H&M, Nike and Ralph Lauren, have also declared their products are not made from Xinjiang cotton, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Meanwhile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden have issued a joint statement expressing grave concern at the human rights situation of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang province.

However, China has denied its involvement in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang while reports from journalists, NGOs and former detainees have surfaced, highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) brutal crackdown on the ethnic community.