The human rights situation in the Xinjiang region requires urgent attention from the international community, the report says. China has tried to block the publication of the report.
Serious human rights violations and possibly crimes against humanity have been committed in China’s Uighur regions, according to a recent report by the Office of the UN High Representative for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the report (you switch to another service).
The long-awaited report was published just a few minutes before midnight Geneva time, i.e. a moment before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet the end of the season. OHCHR operates from Geneva.
For several years, China has been accused of imprisoning more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in prison camps in the Xinjiang region in western China. China calls these detention centers training centers.
According to the report, allegations of repeated torture, forced medical procedures and individual cases of sexual violence in detention centers are credible.
The report calls for urgent attention from the international community to the region’s human rights problems.
– The human rights situation in the Xinjiang region requires urgent attention from the (Chinese) government, the international organizations of the UN, the human rights system and also the wider international community, the report says.
The 49-page report did not once mention the word “genocide”, which is what many Western countries have called China’s treatment of the Uyghurs.
Bachelet: I have not looked at the situation of the Uighurs through fingers
Bachelet visited China’s Xinjiang in May. At the time, the visit drew criticism that China would use the visit for whitewashing and that Bachelet would not be allowed to see the real situation in the Uyghur regions.
Bachelet assured that the dialogue with China did not mean accepting the situation or looking through the fingers.
– It didn’t help that some countries politicized these serious human rights issues, Bachelet said.
China has tried to block the publication of the report.
China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said before the report was published that China was very strongly opposed to the report.
– The so-called Xinjiang issue is a completely politically motivated fake lie aimed at undermining China’s stability and hindering China’s development, he said.
According to Bachelet, one of the reasons for the delay in the publication of the report was that it was made available to the Chinese administration for possible consideration.
According to Zhang, China has not seen the report.