Uighurs and rights advocates on Tuesday decried lame global action over a damning 2022 UN report detailing torture and sweeping abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Members of China’s Uighur minority joined non-governmental organizations on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, to urge UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to step up pressure on Beijing.
“The UN rights chief should strengthen his efforts to press the Chinese government to implement UN recommendations,” Human Rights Watch China researcher Yalkun Uluyol told diplomats gathered for the event.
Photo: EPA
Turk’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, published a report in August 2022, citing possible “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang.
The report — harshly criticized by Beijing — outlined violations against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region, including “credible” allegations of widespread torture and arbitrary detention.
It urged China to promptly “release all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” and clarify the whereabouts of the missing.
“The recommendations have not been implemented,” said Rizwangul Nurmuhammad, a Uighur who has been campaigning for the release of her brother, who was arrested in 2017.
“He was a family breadwinner, a father, a husband, a son, a brother, an ordinary and decent citizen,” she said tearfully, holding a picture of her brother.
“Yet he was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison ... with no justification other than his identity as Uighur,” she said. “This pattern of arbitrary detention carried out systematically by the Chinese authorities, continues today.”
Uluyol, also a Uighur, said he had no contact with his father who was serving 16 years in prison. An uncle was serving a life sentence, and another uncle and cousin were both serving 15-year jail terms.
“All of them were convicted without due process,” he said.
A Chinese diplomat in the room took the floor to insist that “claims of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances are outright lies.”
Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders coexecutive director Sophie Richardson said that “it is fairly clear that these abuses are widespread, systematic,” calling on Turk to urgently brief the council on the situation.
“We are not short of recommendations on how to address these problems,” she said. “What we are short on is leadership by the High Commissioner and by member states to be courageous ... activists for all of the victims and survivors of Chinese government human rights violations.”
Turk’s office said that he had repeatedly raised the issue with Beijing and before the council.
Turk on Monday told the council that “the progress we have sought for the protection of the rights of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang ... have yet to materialize.”
“To be perfectly clear: We stand firmly behind the findings, analysis, conclusions and recommendations of our report,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in an e-mail. “It is absolutely crucial that the victims of these serious human rights violations receive effective remedies, and justice.”
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