(Geneva) Several human rights organizations called on the United Nations to act on Thursday, almost two years after the publication of an explosive report detailing numerous violations in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
“UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is expected to publicly provide an update on steps taken by the Chinese government and his office to address the human rights situation in Xinjiang,” four major organizations said in a statement.
“The High Commissioner’s continued lack of public follow-up on atrocities documented by his own office risks undermining the trust placed in him by victims and survivors,” warn Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Service for Human Rights and the World Uyghur Congress.
These observations come almost two years after the publication in August 2022 by Michelle Bachelet, who preceded Mr. Türk in his post, of a report evoking possible “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang.
The report, which China roundly rejected, listed a series of human rights violations committed against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, demanding the world’s “urgent attention.”
Published minutes before the end of Bachelet’s term, it highlighted “credible” allegations of widespread torture, arbitrary detention and violations of religious and reproductive rights.
This brought UN backing to long-standing accusations that Beijing had detained more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims in re-education camps.
It was “a key moment to highlight the seriousness of human rights violations in Xinjiang,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, quoted in the press release.
“Now it is up to the UN High Commissioner to make full use of this report to improve the situation of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang,” he adds.
Human rights organizations recall that Mr. Turk declared himself “very determined” to intervene “personally” with the Chinese authorities on issues affecting human rights, including in Xinjiang.
But they complain of never having seen him provide “modalities for his intervention with the government” nor “any substantial update on the situation in Xinjiang, nor an evaluation by his office of the implementation of recommendations of the report”.
At the same time, they believe that Beijing “continued to arbitrarily imprison hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs” as part of its repression.
“Almost two years later, it is imperative that he (Mr. Türk, Editor’s note) and his office provide details of their efforts to prevent crimes against humanity and other rights violations, and seek accountability.” , they demand.
The organizations signing the statement also believe that the UN failed to make the report widely accessible by only publishing it in English. To try to remedy this, they presented their own translation on Thursday into the five other official languages of the UN: Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish and Chinese.
