2023-08-31 11:22:32
© Molly Crabapple
“The one-year anniversary of the devastating UN report on Xinjiang is a stark reminder of the need to hold China to account for crimes against humanity in the context of a ‘lamentably insufficient’ response from the international community,” Amnesty International said today. .
On August 31, 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) posted his long awaited reviewn of the human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in which it concluded that rights violations by the Chinese government against the Uyghur population and other predominantly Muslim minorities—including torture and mass incarceration in internment camps— could “constitute […] Crimes against humanity”.
“Instead of acting urgently on the report’s findings of grave violations of international law in China, the international community—including important components of the UN itself—shuddered at the kind of resolute action necessary to promote justice, truth and reparation for the victims,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for China.
The OHCHR assessment of Xinjiang was published on the last day of the mandate of the previous high commissioner, Michelle Bachelet. Its publication had suffered a serious delay, when Commissioner Bachelet had indicated a year earlier that it was “finalizing”. In a draft letter to Bachelet leaked to the media, the Chinese authorities had urged the high commissioner “not to publish” the report on the situation in Xinjiang prepared by her office.
In October 2022, the member states of the Human Rights Council narrowly rejected a resolution that would have required a debate on the report, an initiative that had already fallen short of what was required by the calls of 50 of the appointed experts themselves. by the Council (the Special Procedures) to hold a special session on the issue.
Bachelet’s successor, Volker Turk, promised in December 2022 to speak personally with the Chinese authorities about the serious human rights violations exposed in the report. However, his public follow-up—including a statement in March 2023 claiming that his office had opened “channels of communication” with Beijing, and another in June 2023 reiterating his office’s efforts to seek “a Greater Engagement”—still fails to clearly underscore the urgent need for accountability for these alarming violations.
“We need national and international officials, especially those with human rights responsibilities such as the High Commissioner, to use all the means at their disposal – both public and private – to seek significant changes in China’s repressive policies, among other things. things by engaging in a frank and evidence-based dialogue with the authorities about the human rights violations they have perpetrated,” Brooks said.
The OHCHR assessment reflected reports by Amnesty International and other credible organizations documenting patterns of torture and other ill-treatment, as well as incidents of sexual and gender-based violence among a range of human rights violations.
“The need for States, through the Human Rights Council, to establish an independent international mechanism to investigate crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations in Xinjiang is more urgent than ever”
The UN report concluded that the “extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of the Uyghur community and other predominantly Muslim groups […] may constitute crimes under international law and, specifically, crimes against humanity”. And he went on to say that “conditions continue to exist for serious violations to continue and recur,” adding urgency to the need for a swift and effective effort to address the situation.
The anniversary of the report comes the same week that President Xi Jinping made a surprise visit to the Xinjiang city of Urumqi, where he asked authorities to tighten restrictions on “illegal religious activities.” The Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied accusations that human rights violations were taking place in the region.
“The first anniversary of the OHCHR report should be a call to action for the international community. The need for states, through the Human Rights Council, to establish an independent international mechanism to investigate crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations in Xinjiang is more urgent than ever. The families of those arbitrarily detained or subjected to enforced disappearance or ill-treatment want and deserve answers and accountability, not delays or concessions,” Brooks concluded.
China’s crackdown on Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, carried out under the guise of fighting terrorism, has been widely documented since 2017, especially by UN special procedures . In 2021, a exhaustive report of Amnesty International demonstrated that the systematic mass imprisonment, torture and persecution carried out by the Chinese authorities and organized by the state constituted crimes against humanity.
The Amnesty International campaignl Advocacy for the Release of People Detained in Xinjiang has so far filed the cases of 126 people, among the number of perhaps more than a million who have been subjected to arbitrary detention in Xinjiang internment camps and prisons since 2017.
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