A coalition of 43 countries denounced China’s human rights record at the United Nations on Thursday, criticizing Beijing for its detainment of Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.

While the group of mostly Western nations criticizes China annually in the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee, that rebuke was joined this year for the first time by countries including Turkey, Eswatini and Liberia. The new additions to last year’s group, which included 39 nations, help push back against Chinese claims that the rebuke is part of a Western effort to keep China from rising.

"We have seen an increasing number of reports of widespread and systematic human rights violations, including reports documenting torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilization, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced separation of children,” French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said on behalf of the group. "Widespread surveillance disproportionately continues to target Uyghurs and members of other minorities.”