Amnesty International criticizes Bachelet for the lack of action in the face of human rights violations against minorities in Xinjiang

July 6. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The NGO Amnesty International (AI) criticized the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Tuesday for the lack of action in the face of the “serious violations of Human Rights” perpetrated by the Chinese authorities against Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.

In a statement, the organization has described as “disappointing” that this week a new session of the UN Human Rights Council is closed “without the UN conclusions on Xinjiang having been discussed.

Thus, he has pointed out that there are new “shocking” testimonies of families of Uyghur and Kazakh ethnicity who are “held in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” and has once again asked Bachelet, whom he has accused of “repeatedly refusing to recognize its seriousness”, to act.

“The stories of these families give us a glimpse of the horrors that are taking place in Xinjiang, which constitute crimes against humanity. Many people said that they had several family members in detention, which illustrates the enormous scale of the abuses,” AI Secretary General Agnès Callamard has asserted.

In this regard, he stated that the parsimony that has characterized the UN’s response to the “dystopian nightmare of Xinjiang further worsens the situation of the victims and survivors of the Chinese government’s massive campaign of imprisonment, torture and persecution against minorities. Muslim”.

“We continue to call on the Chinese government to dismantle its vast system of internment camps; end arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and mistreatment both in prisons and elsewhere,” the text reads.

In addition, the NGO has emphasized the importance of holding the authorities “accountable”, for which it is “essential” that Bachelet publish her report, which “is long overdue”.

“His constant refusal to denounce crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations in Xinjiang is an obstacle to justice, as well as an embarrassment to the United Nations system,” he said.

TESTIMONIALS

AI has recently interviewed the relatives of dozens of people held in the Chinese region and accused of alleged terrorism crimes, among other charges. All of them have pointed out that the arrests occurred for issues “as trivial” as traveling or paying for their children’s education abroad.

Kazakh Gulaisha Oralbay explained that her brother, Dilshat Oralbay, a retired Uyghur journalist and translator, was arrested shortly after returning to the region in 2017. “There is no court, they put him in jail and told him it would be for 25 years and yeah,” he said.

“I don’t even think he knows the reason himself. Someone said it was because he had traveled to Kazakhstan. There is no justification or clear reason,” he continued.

For his part, Abdullah Rasul told Amnesty that his brother Parhat Rasul, a farmer and part-time butcher, was arrested and taken to an internment camp in May 2017. The family have not heard from him directly since then, but in In 2018, a source close to the matter informed them that Parhat had been sentenced to nine years in prison.

Parhat’s family believes he was arrested simply for being a practicing Muslim and carrying out charitable activities. Some relatives have indicated that Parhat’s wife, Kalbinur, and his mother-in-law, Parizat Abdugul, have also been imprisoned.

The NGO has recalled that those who denounce the situation run a huge risk; Several family members of detainees said that the authorities had threatened them for speaking about it publicly.

Thus, he has insisted that China’s repression against people of the Uyghur, Kazakh and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, carried out under the pretext of fighting “terrorism”, has been widely documented since 2017. In 2021, a A comprehensive report published by Amnesty International reflected that the massive and systematic imprisonment, torture and persecution organized by the Chinese authorities constituted crimes against humanity.

“The Chinese authorities have used their repressive surveillance state to try to hide these violations, but information continues to leak from Xinjiang,” the organization has clarified.

Callamard, for his part, stressed that “despite growing evidence, the Chinese authorities continue to lie about large-scale arbitrary detention in Xinjiang” and argued that AI supports the idea that the UN establish an independent mechanism , impartial and international to investigate the alleged crimes and other violations committed by the Chinese Government in Xinjiang.