Pope, for first time, says Uighurs are ‘persecuted’

In a new book, Pope Francis for the first time calls China's Muslim Uighurs a "persecuted" people, something human rights activists have been urging him to do for years. "I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi," he said in a section where he also talks about persecuted Christians in Islamic countries. In the wide-ranging "Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future," Francis also says the Covid-19 pandemic should spur governments to consider permanently establishing a universal basic income. In the book, a 150-page collaboration with his English-language biographer, Austen Ivereigh, Francis speaks of economic, social and political changes he says are needed to address inequalities after the pandemic ends. It goes on sale on Dec. 1.