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An anticipated UN report claims that the Chinese government has committed “grave human rights violations” in its detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in western Xinjiang.
The 48-page report, which Western diplomats and UN officials said had been almost ready for months, was released minutes after the end of the four-year term of UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.
The watchtowers are located on the perimeter wall of the No. 3 of Urumqi in Dabancheng, in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, in western China.
(Photo AP / Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Taken from interviews with former inmates in eight separate detention centers in the region, its authors suggest that “serious” human rights violations were committed in Xinjiang as part of China’s anti-terrorism and extremism policies, which they identified Uighurs and other Muslim communities, between 2017 and 2019.
The report cites “models of torture” within what Beijing called professional centers, which were part of its renowned plan to promote economic development in the region, and points to “credible” allegations of torture or ill-treatment, including cases of sexual assault. .
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Above all, perhaps, the report warns that the “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of such groups in Xinjiang, through moves that deprive them of “fundamental rights … may constitute international crimes, particularly crimes against humanity”.
The report’s authors say they cannot confirm estimates of how many people have been detained in the internment camps. But they add that, based on the evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the number of detainees “at least between 2017 and 2019, was very significant, including a substantial portion of the Uyghur population and other predominantly Muslim minorities.”
The report calls for an urgent international response to allegations of torture and other rights violations in Beijing’s campaign to eradicate terrorism.
A security person watches from a watchtower around a detention facility in Yarkent County, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, northwest China.
(Photo AP / Ng Han Guan)
Bachelet ignored repeated Chinese requests to his office to hide the report, which follows his trip to Xinjiang in May and which Beijing says is part of a Western campaign to defame China’s reputation.
Chinese UN ambassador Zhang Jun criticized the report just hours before his release, reiterating that Beijing remained “firmly against” the report.
“We haven’t seen this report yet, but we are completely against such a report, we don’t think it will do any good for anyone,” Zhang told reporters outside the Security Council. “We have made it clear to the High Commissioner and on several other occasions that we are firmly opposed to such a report.”
He said the “so-called Xinjiang issue” was an invention intended to undermine China’s stability and hinder its development.
Over the past five years, China’s mass detention campaign in Xinjiang has dragged an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other ethnic groups into a network of prisons and camps, which Beijing has called “training centers,” but former inmates have described. as brutal detention centers.
Some countries, including the United States, have accused Beijing of committing genocide in Xinjiang.
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Sophie Richardson, Chinese director of Human Rights Watch, urged the 47-member Human Rights Council, whose next session is in September, to investigate the allegations and hold those responsible.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
