The "Taiwan Parliament Group for Uyghur" stands in solidarity with those suffering the oppression of the authoritarian government in China, said independent Legislator Freddy Lim at an inaugural event.
The group will liaise with foreign parliamentary counterparts that also support the Uyghur community and promote fundamental values such as democracy and human rights, according to Lim, who is head of the group of 30 Taiwanese legislators.
Taiwan has been at the frontline of threats from Beijing, and it must not stand by as China ramps up its grip and pressure on Hongkongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs, Lim added.
A United Nations' report in 2018 suggests that more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained in internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region built and run by the Chinese Communist Party.
The inmates are reportedly subject to torture, rape, political indoctrination and other inhumane treatment, according to international media and human rights groups.
The Chinese government, on the other hand, has rejected those reports and defended its Xinjiang policy as combating "extremism" and providing "vocational training."
The inauguration on Friday has drawn the attention of the World Uyghur Congress, with its president Dolkun Isa extending his welcome to the establishment of the group in a pre-recorded video.
Meanwhile, Dilxat Raxit, spokesperson for the Munich-based rights group, told CNA in a telephone interview that "at a time when democracy and human rights have suffered a setback across the world, advocates for freedom ought to work to overcome this adversity."
The group also urged Taiwan's Legislature to be the first in Asia to declare China's treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide, said the spokesman.
After the U.S. Department of State designated the ongoing situation in Xinjiang as genocide in January, the parliaments of Canada, the Netherlands and the U.K. have since followed suit.
