SW News: The UN human rights chief stated in a recently-released 48-page report that China’s "arbitrary and discriminatory detention" of Uyghur Muslims in its Xinjiang region constituted a crime against humanity.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stated that "serious human rights violations have been committed" in the Xinjiang province. The report stated that more than one million Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group from the northwestern part of Xinjiang, have been arbitrarily detained in "re-education camps".

The report stated, "allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence".
"Credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies since 2017," the report stated.
"Similarly, there are indications that labour and employment schemes for purported purposes of poverty alleviation and prevention of 'extremism'... may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds,” the UN report explained.

The report asked China to release "all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty".

China strongly denied the criticisms raised by the UN and issued a 131-page response to the UN report.

The Chinese government has been targeting the 12 million Uyghurs living in the Xinjiang region in fear after accusing them of holding radical and separatist ideas. By sending Uyghurs to the re-education camps, they were forced to reject Islam and compelled to express loyalty to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). They were even forced to sing praises for communism.

President Xi Jinping warned against the “toxicity of religious extremism” and vowed to wipe out Islamic extremists in several of his secret speeches during his Xinjiang visit in 2014.

The World Uyghur Congress welcomed the UN report and advised the immediate intervention of international organizations.