A UN committee Thursday, November 24, acting under its urgent action procedure, demanded that China investigate all allegations of violations of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) including torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence, forced labour, enforced disappearances, and deaths in custody, as soon as possible.
Breaking !!! The @UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination acting under its urgent action procedure, has called for an investigation into #China’s human rights abuses & urged China to release all those arbitrarily detained and tortured in China’s #concentration camps pic.twitter.com/uy7uWZkaPH
— Rayhan E. Asat (@RayhanAsat) November 24, 2022
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) also called on China to release all individuals arbitrarily detained in the XUAR, whether in so-called Vocational Education and Training Centres (VETCs) or other detention facilities.
The UN Human Rights Office stated in a statement that the Committee encouraged the State party to immediately cease any harassment and reprisals against Uyghur and other ethnic Muslim communities, the diaspora, and those who speak out in their defence, both domestically and internationally.
It urged Beijing to offer meaningful and effective remedies and reparation to victims of human rights violations, particularly Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim populations.
The committee also recommended that China conduct a thorough review of its legal framework governing national security, counter-terrorism, and minority rights in the XUAR to ensure full compliance with its obligations as a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Furthermore, it urged the State Party to properly implement its 2018 recommendations, as well as the Committee against Torture’s 2015 Concluding Observations and the UN Human Rights Office’s assessment of human rights issues in the XUAR of August 2022.
‘Xinjiang police files’ reveal gross human right violation against Muslims Uyghurs
The UN committee has raised concerns about the content of the ‘Xinjiang police files’ that were leaked in May this year. It revealed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Xi Jinping is involved in brazen human rights abuse against Muslims in Xinjiang.
According to the reports, the Chinese government has detained Uyghur Muslims in the concentration camps which China terms ‘vocational skills education and training centres’. At these centres, Uyghurs are brainwashed to be ‘trustworthy persons’ for the Communist government.
The matter came to light when the ‘Xinjiang police files’ were published by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation with cooperation from 14 media outlets from 11 countries. The files gave the world an inside view of China’s ‘re-education camps’ and the ‘prison-like’ conditions that Uyghurs are made to face.
According to the report, some of the photographs of the 2884 detainees of the ‘re-education camp’ show guards standing by, armed with batons. It refutes Chinese claims that there is no coercion at these camps. The report also mentions that many of them have been detained for no reason or for unsound reasons. The Xinjiang Police Files further contain another set of documents that shows detainees photographed in the prison-like surroundings of these ‘re-education camps’ that China insists are ‘vocational schools’.
Blindfolds, handcuffs, and shackles mandatory for ‘students’ being transferred between facilities or even to hospitals, backed with an extreme level of physical control are a common sight. The documents further show Chinese authorities treating the ‘students’ as they usually treat the detainees in the detention centres. They also run the indoctrination centres at these camps, again making no differentiation between the camps and the prison.
China slams UN Committee’s demand for a probe into gross human rights violation in Xinjiang by the Chinese Govt
China, meanwhile, lashed out Thursday at the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination over its demand for an immediate probe into Xinjiang-related issues. Hours after the statement that called on China to immediately probe all allegations of human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur, Liu Yuyin, spokesperson for the Chinese mission to Geneva, said that the ‘so-called’ decision is “based on disinformation fabricated by Western countries and anti-China separatist force.”
“Some Western countries, out of the scheme of containing China by using Xinjiang-related issues and associating with anti-China separatists, have long been fabricating and spreading Xinjiang-related lies and rumours, coercing and manipulating multilateral human rights institutions to take actions, in an attempt to smear China, undermine the stability of Xinjiang and curb the development of China. As one of the human rights treaty bodies, the CERD should have carried out its work in an impartial and objective way, and conducted constructive exchanges and dialogues with State Parties. However, the CERD is now driven by certain forces, abuses its so-called “Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures” without seeking communication or clarification with the Chinese government, forcibly adopts the so-called decision, stigmatizes China based on disinformation, and reduces itself to the political tool of the West.”
