In its long-awaited report on claims of mistreatment in China’s Xinjiang province, the United Nations has accused the country’s government of “serious human rights breaches.”
With Beijing characterizing the report as a “farce” orchestrated by Western powers, China has lobbied the UN to withhold its distribution.
Despite China’s denials, the report evaluates allegations of maltreatment against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities.
However, “credible evidence” of torture, which could constitute “crimes against humanity,” was discovered, according to the investigators.
They claimed that China had established “systems of arbitrary imprisonment” and violated minority rights by utilizing overbroad national security regulations.
Prisoners were found to have experienced “patterns of ill-treatment,” including “incidents of sexual and gender-based violence,” according to a report commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Others, they claimed, were subjected to “selective enforcement of family planning and birth control regulations” and forced medical treatment.
Some of Beijing’s actions may amount to the “commission of international crimes, including crimes against humanity,” thus the UN has urged the country to free “all those arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” immediately.
Human rights groups estimate that over a million people have been jailed in camps in the Xinjiang region, in northwest China, although the United Nations has stated that it does not know how many people are being held by the government.
The World Uyghur Congress, a coalition of some 60 organizations, has expressed its appreciation for the findings and called for a prompt international reaction.
According to Omer Kanat, director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, “this is a game-changer for the world reaction to the Uyghur situation.” The United Nations has now acknowledged the existence of horrible crimes, despite the Chinese government’s vehement denials.
About 12 million Uyghurs, the majority of whom are Muslim, call Xinjiang home. The United Nations has acknowledged that the problems detailed in the study may have affected non-Muslim members as well.
Even though the United States and other governments have called China’s conduct in Xinjiang genocide, the United Nations has refrained from using that term.
Despite this, Beijing has denied the charges of mistreatment and stated that the camps are a useful tool in the fight against terrorism, despite having seen the report in advance.
The Chinese delegation at the UN human rights council in Geneva criticised the report’s findings, claiming they “smeared and slandered China” and meddled in China’s internal affairs.
The statement was somewhat extensive and argued that the “evaluation” was politicized, ignored the facts, and revealed that the United States, Western countries, and anti-China groups intended to exploit human rights as a political instrument.
