China “committed serious human rights violations” – UN report

China has “committed serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang, according to the UN’s much-awaited report that was set to expose the abuse.

China had tried to pressurize the UN to hide the damning report, and did its best to spread disinformation both at home and abroad. Calling the report, ‘Western propaganda to spread disharmony.’

Other than the physical and mental torture inflicted upon the Uyghur Muslims, it was discovered in the report that Islamic religious sites, shrines, cemeteries, were destroyed as well.

Alongside the increasing restrictions on expressions of Muslim religious practice are recurring reports of the destruction of Islamic religious sites, such as mosques, shrines and cemeteries, especially during the “Strike Hard” campaign period. According to the Government, 20,000 of the 35,000 mosques in the entire country are located in XUAR.

The OHCHR report discovered.

Satellite imagery has also been used as evidence where the Islamic sites can be seen destroyed.

People are allowed only to practice Islam in government-authorized sites. Schools are barred from teaching anything but the national curriculum and bar students from praying or observing their beliefs.

The report discovered that giving children “Muslim names,” “family planning, “wearing ‘hijabs,'” keeping “‘abnormal’ beards,” “closing restaurants during Ramadan,” participating in cross-county religious activities ‘without valid reason,'” is considered as religious extremism.

Such directions or interpretations “explicitly target” Islamic teachings and practice, the report said.

The “Strike Hard” campaign has led to the adoption or amendment of various legal instruments to further tighten the regulation of religion, that resulted in the regulation of religion, including the obligation of “any organization or individual [to] consciously resist religious extremism and illegal religious activities”. As highlighted above, “extremism” is defined broadly, while the legal instruments include a list of “primary expressions of extremism” that have in practice been accompanied by lists of “signs” of “religious extremism” to assist officials and the general public in identifying “extremist” behaviour in the community. These “expressions” and “signs” include conduct that may in the circumstances be of legitimate concern, such as “inciting ‘Jihad’, advocating and carrying out violent terrorist activities”, but range far more widely, encompassing an exceptionally broad range of acts that in themselves constitute exercise of protected fundamental freedoms connected to the enjoyment of cultural and religious life by these communities. These include wearing hijabs and “abnormal” beards; expanding the scope of “Halal”; closing restaurants during Ramadan; participating in cross-county religious activities “without valid reason”; using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), social media and Internet to teach scriptures and preach; and giving one’s child a Muslim name. They also include various forms of dissent and breaches of other laws and policies, including those relating to family planning, as signs of “extremism”.

The report on China explicitly targeting Uyghurs.

The OHCHR assessment report said that China committed “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region “in the context of the Government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism’ strategies.”

The report exposed China’s state-sponsored attempts to target a specific community and religion which it deems unsafe for its communistic regime and set of policies.

China’s domestic “anti-terrorism law system” has been found to be “deeply problematic.” It leaves it to the local administration to interpret and respond to ‘threats’ and take “preventive” action.

Torture was discovered in the treatment or “re-education centers” as China calls them, to de-Islamize children who are snatched away from their parents.

Allegations of “sexual and gender-based violence” on Uyghurs and “patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention” have been found to be credible.

Although, the report cannot provide the extent of the violence committed against the Uyghurs, it discovered the clear “highly securitized and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities” that makes broad-scale violations certain.

China has been luring teen and particularly young Uyghurs through its job schemes to such facilities, and once they are in there is no way out unless they are “re-educated.”

The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse in VETC and other detention facilities come against the backdrop of broader discrimination against members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities based on perceived security threats emanating from individual members of these groups. This has included far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international norms and standards. These have included undue restrictions on religious identity and expression, as well as the rights to privacy and movement. There are serious indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive and discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies. Similarly, there are indications that labour and employment schemes for purported purposes of poverty alleviation and prevention of “extremism”, including those linked to the VETC system, may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds.

OHCHR report.

The damning report exposed how Beijing forcefully separated families, took children and family members away. Put children and young adults into forced “re-education facilities” where they are tortured. China destroyed Islamic religious sites and even cemeteries.

The described policies and practices in XUAR have transcended borders, separating families and severing human contacts, while causing particular suffering to affected Uyghur, Kazakh and other predominantly Muslim minority families, exacerbated by patterns of intimidations and threats against members of the diaspora community speaking publicly about experiences in XUAR.

The report describes the family separation.

The report found Beijing to have committed “crimes against humanity.”

Under International law, countries must ensure that “all laws and policies are brought into compliance with international human rights law.”

The UN report recommends Beijing to:

“Promptly investigate any allegations of human rights violations, to ensure accountability for perpetrators and to provide redress to victims.”

It highlighted that the human rights situation in Xinjiang “also requires urgent attention by the Government, the United Nations intergovernmental bodies and human rights system, as well as the international community more broadly.”

The report recommends that China releases all those it has wrongfully detained in prisons and the so-called “re-education facilities.”

That China lets loved ones know where their missing family members are, drafts laws that root out real terrorism and does not discriminate against the Uyghurs because of how they look and the religion they practice – in short, does not torture them for having Muslim names, a longer beard, eating something different and practicing their religion.

China has been urged to “promptly” investigate the torture, sexual abuse, violence, medical abuse, and forced labor in its facilities.