According to a shocking investigation into major human rights violations released by the United Nations late yesterday night, China’s ‘arbitrary and discriminatory incarceration’ of Uyghurs and other Muslims in the nation’s Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity.
The report, which had been in the works for almost a year, was released in Geneva at 11:47 p.m. (9.47 p.m. in the UK) yesterday, just 13 minutes before Michelle Bachelet’s four-year tenure as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights came to an end.
”The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the report made public by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the top UN agency for human rights.
The Guardian claims that the late transmission of an official Chinese response, which included names and images of people who had to be blacked out by the UN commissioner’s office for privacy and safety reasons, caused a delay in the report’s publishing.Following the report’s final publication, rights advocates have demanded a more thorough UN inquiry into “Chinese government crimes against humanity.”
“The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterised by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities,” the OHCHR report said.
Although specifics are vague and access to the camps is limited to guided tours, neither central nor provincial authorities have disclosed the precise number of persons who were detained in the camps.The accusations against Beijing included widespread brainwashing, forced labour in Xinjiang’s resource-rich factories, forced abortions, and the imprisonment of approximately one million members of minority Muslim populations.
