TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Wednesday (Aug. 31), after years of research and collecting data on the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against the Uyghur people, the United Nations (UN) finally released an assessment on human rights violations in the Xinjiang region, also known as East Turkestan.

After delaying publication of the report for months under pressure from the CCP, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, finally chose to release the report a full 13 minutes before stepping down from office.

Her successor will be expected to weather criticism from the CCP over the report which states that the government of China may be guilty of crimes against humanity. The report analyzes numerous interviews and documents released by Beijing over the years 2017 to 2021, which, taken together, suggest that China is guilty of serious abuses against its Uyghur citizens and violations of their human rights.

According to analysts quoted by Politico, the report fell short of depicting the full extent of China’s crimes against humanity. This was because the report did not include the word “genocide” nor did it detail practices of forced labor, which many refugees have described as widespread and pervasive in the Xinjiang region.



The UN report on China's abuses in Xinjiang, which can be read here, calls for the CCP to immediately release all Uyghur prisoners from detention facilities.