US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday hailed the UN report on alleged human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, demanding that Beijing be held accountable for the “genocide”. “This report reinforces and reaffirms our serious concerns about the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Chinese authorities” against the Muslim Uyghur minority, Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Despite pressure from Beijing, which strongly denounced the report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published this long-awaited report on the situation in Xinjiang on Wednesday evening. The UN report mentions the possibility of “crimes against humanity” in the region but does not speak expressly of genocide. “We will continue to hold the Chinese authorities to account and call on them to release all those held without justification (…) and to allow unrestricted access to independent investigators in Xinjiang, Tibet, and other countries. through China,” said the head of American diplomacy.
Without confirming them, the UN report also considers “credible” the accusations of torture, sexual violence and even rape in internment establishments in Xinjiang. The report, however, does not endorse Western accusations of “forced labor” but points to “elements of coercion” in Xinjiang’s employment promotion program. If it does not contain revelations, this report brings the seal of the UN to the accusations leveled for a long time against the Chinese authorities. Its publication had been the subject of intense pressure. Human rights organizations and the United States, which has named China as its strategic rival, wanted to make it public. Conversely, Beijing strongly opposed it. Some Uyghur organizations based abroad welcomed the report but others wished it condemned China more strongly.