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UN: China's treatment of Uighur Muslims may be crime against humanity
The United Nations on late Wednesday (August 31) released a landmark report detailing serious human rights abuses by China against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang region.
The Xinjiang region has swung in and out of Chinese rule over the centuries, but fell back into Beijing’s orbit as the Communist Party launched a military-led settlement programme after taking control of the country in 1949.
Its population of around 26 million is ethnically diverse, including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other minority groups.
The Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic group who speak a Turkic language and are culturally closer to communities in Central Asia than Beijing.
The report was released by chief Michelle Bachelet just ten minutes before her term in office was due to end.
Bachelet came under immense pressure over the report. She said last week a group of 40 governments had sent her a letter urging her not to publish it, according to the DPA.
"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," the report notes.
The report concludes that from 2017 to 2019 and potentially thereafter, people were deprived of fundamental rights.
Uyghurs urge UN rights chief Bachelet to ask hard questions in Xinjiang region
Hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other members of minority groups have been put into forced re-education camps, according to rights groups and Uighurs who have fled China. Beijing has rejected allegations of rights abuses and called them lies.
The UN report was supposed to be published last year but Bachelet delayed its release because she was in talks with China for months to be allowed to travel to the country.
The trip happened in June under the conditions that Bachelet and her office could decide where she would go and who she would speak to without supervision from authorities.
UN rights envoy Michelle Bachelet defends controversial China visit
China agreed to the demands, her office said. Bachelet travelled to Xinjiang, but by the end of the trip she refrained from criticizing the Chinese government's actions in the region, which prompted international criticism of her.
Bachelet took up the top UN rights post in 2018. She did not seek a second term. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has not yet named a successor.
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