BEIJING — An Air China flight to Beijing returned to its origin in Paris on Thursday because of “suspected terrorist information,” Chinese state media said.
BEIJING — An Air China flight to Beijing returned to its origin in Paris on Thursday because of “suspected terrorist information,” Chinese state media said.
The official Xinhua News Agency did not describe the information.
It said Air China announced on its social media site that flight CA876 had landed in Paris and all passengers were safe.
The airline said the flight would resume as soon as possible, without giving details.
No one was available at the Air China office at Charles de Gaulle airport except for cargo staff who declined to talk. There was no answer at a general airport number.
China’s government has been instituting increasingly severe security measures in recent years, particularly targeting the Muslim Uighur and Buddhist Tibetan minorities. It has launched a sweeping “People’s War on Terror” in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, a vast region with more than 10 million Muslims.
Since last spring, tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Xinjiang have been placed in mass internment camps where they face enormous physical and psychological stress to renounce their religion, native Uighur culture and any pro-separatist sentiments.
A sweeping anti-terrorism law took effect in 2016 under President Xi Jinping, who has led the country’s broadest crackdown on dissent of all kinds in decades.
