Fifty United Nations members have urged China to “uphold its international human rights obligations”. The joint statement responds to a U.N. report that documents systematic abuse of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
A joint statement, read by Canada during a U.N. debate, spoke of international concern over China’s refusal to discuss its treatment of Uyghurs.
The statement emphasized that the report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had made “an important contribution to the existing evidence of serious and systematic human rights violations in China.”
The countries stressed that “such severe and systematic violations of human rights cannot be justified on the basis of counterterrorism.”
A group of U.N. members. including the United States and the United Kingdom, organized a meeting last week to discuss the report. China’s U.N. Mission condemned the meeting, calling it an “anti-China event” and wrote to other states asking them to boycott it.
China’s deflection attempts are wearing thin and diplomatic pressure on Beijing continues to mount. Activists around the world are responding by doubling down on their campaigning against Uyghur forced labor
