UN cites possible ‘crimes against humanity’ in China’s Xinjiang

Geneva: China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity, the UN human rights office said in a long-awaited report.

The report released on Thursday (AEST) calls for an urgent international response over allegations of torture and other rights violations in Beijing’s campaign to root out terrorism.

A February protest in Istanbul against China’s internment of Uighurs.Credit: AP

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who has faced criticism from some diplomats and rights groups for being too soft on China, released the report just minutes before her four-year term ended. She visited China in May.

Her office said in its 48-page report that “serious human rights violations have been committed” in Xinjiang “in the context of the government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism’ strategies”.

“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups ... may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” it said.

Bachelet recommended the Chinese government to take prompt steps to release all those detained in training centres, prisons or detention facilities.

“There are credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies since 2017,” the office said.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was criticised for not confronting China during her visit there in May. In this photo, she is meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing in May.Credit: AP

It added that a lack of government data “makes it difficult to draw conclusions on the full extent of current enforcement of these policies and associated violations of reproductive rights”.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. The United States is among countries who have accused China of genocide.

China has vigorously denied the allegations.

A satellite image shows a forced internment camp in the Xinjiang region of China. Experts say the Chinese government has detained up to 1.8 million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities for what it calls "voluntary job training".Credit: Planet Labs via AP

China’s mission in Geneva described the report as a “farce” planned by the United States, Western nations and anti-China forces based on false information and the assumption of guilt.

Speaking ahead of the report’s release, China’s ambassador to the UN in New York, Zhang Jun, said Beijing had repeatedly voiced opposition to it. He said the UN human rights chief should not interfere in China’s internal affairs.

“We all know, so well, that the so-called Xinjiang issue is a completely fabricated lie out of political motivations and its purpose definitely is to undermine China’s stability and to obstruct China’s development,” Zhang told reporters on Wednesday.

“We do not think it will produce any good to anyone, it simply undermines the cooperation between the United Nations and a member state,” he said.

“We have made it very clear to the high commissioner and in a number of other occasions that we are firmly opposed to such a report.”

Bachelet said in recent months that she received pressure from both sides to publish – or not publish – the report and resisted it all, treading a fine line while noting her experience with political squeeze during her two terms as president of Chile.

In June, she said she would not seek a new term as rights chief, and promised the report would be released by her departure date on August 31.

That led to a swell of back-channel campaigns – including letters from civil society, civilians and governments on both sides of the issue. She hinted last week her office might miss her deadline, saying it was “trying” to release it before her exit.

Bachelet had set her sights on Xinjiang upon taking office in September 2018, but Western diplomats voiced concerns in private that over her term, she did not challenge China enough when other rights monitors had cited abuses against Muslim Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang.

In the past five years, the Chinese government’s mass detention campaign in Xinjiang swept an estimated million Uyghurs and other ethnic groups into a network of prisons and camps, which Beijing called “training centres” but former detainees described as brutal detention centres.

Beijing has since closed many of the camps, but hundreds of thousands continue to languish in prison on vague, secret charges.

Reuters, AP

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