A group of 60 Uyghur organizations from 20 countries are calling for an immediate response to put an end to atrocities against Uyghurs, following the release of a report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
A groundbreaking United Nations report published on August 31 says the Chinese government has committed abuses that may amount to crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the Xinjiang region.
The report by the outgoing UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet contains victim accounts that substantiate mass arbitrary detention, torture, and other serious human rights violations and recommends world to take action to end the abuses.
Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, in a statement, said Uyghurs are calling for seven concrete actions by governments, multilateral bodies, and corporations.
“This UN report is extremely important. It paves the way for meaningful and tangible action by member states, UN bodies, and the business community,” said World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa. “Accountability starts now.”
“This is a game-changer for the international response to the Uyghur crisis,” said Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director Omer Kanat. “Despite the Chinese government’s strenuous denials, the UN has now officially recognized that horrific crimes are occurring.”
The report offers the most definitive assessment of the issues faced by Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples from the world’s leading human rights body. Most notably, it finds that “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, within the context of other restrictions, “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
The report also notes that the human rights abuses have included “far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international norms and standards,” and that documentation of “patterns of torture or ill-treatment” is credible, including “incidents of sexual […] violence.”
On the crime of state-imposed forced labour, the report affirms the “deep concerns” of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), stating that the “OHCHR shares, from the human rights perspective, the concerns laid out by the ILO supervisory bodies.”
The report recommends for the Chinese government to take steps to release those arbitrarily detained; clarify the whereabouts of detained family members; cease intimidation and reprisals against Uyghurs in connection with their advocacy; to cooperate with the ILO Committee of Experts recommendations; and provide “adequate remedy and reparation to victims” of human rights abuses.
The report recommends that governments should “refrain from returning [Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples] to China” and “provide humanitarian assistance, including medical and psycho-social support, to victims in the States in which they are located.”
The report also makes recommendations to the business community to strengthen human rights risk assessments in the surveillance and security sector in particular, and for companies to respect human rights across activities and business relationships.