UN releases report on violation of rights of Uyghurs in China

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has published a report on the violation of the rights of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Report informs that the document lists the UN observations of the autonomous region item by item.

They include the information collected from Uyghurs during interviews: experiences of torture, ill-treatment, and violence. The report stated that between 2017 and 2019, the number of Uyghurs detained in the so-called "Vocational Education and Training Centers" was very significant and that Uyghurs, as well as other minorities, who are mainly Muslim, constitute an important part there.

None of the Uyghurs interviewed by the UN said they could leave the centers and go home. Moreover, before being sent to the centers, most were detained in police stations, where they were taken by force without being given a choice.

As a rule, Uyghurs stayed in these centers in eight places in China for two to 18 months. Two-thirds of the twenty-six ex-prisoners disclosed that they had been tortured and ill-treated. They were kept in the so-called tiger chair, where they could not move, beaten with batons, including electric batons, and interrogated by pouring water on their faces.

Some former prisoners said that they were kept in handcuffs in the centers. Also, the employees of the centers prevented the Uyghurs from sleeping by turning on the lights in the cells at night. Some of them were forced to work at night so that their roommates could not perform prayers. The Uyghurs were injected with unknown drugs, which made them sleepy.

In addition to beatings and torture, some prisoners, primarily women, were assaulted. According to the interviewees, guards forced them to perform oral sex during interrogation and raped them in rooms without cameras. Several women also reported that they were subjected to forced invasive gynecological examinations.

China's Permanent Mission to the UN condemned the report and noted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had slandered China. Chinese diplomats claimed they were the target of a campaign of 'disinformation and lies concocted by anti-China forces.'

Social stability, economic development, cultural prosperity, and religious harmony prevail in Xinjiang, and people of all ethnic groups live happily in peace and tranquility, said Liu Yuyin, spokesperson of China's Permanent Mission, adding that attempts by the United States, Western countries and anti-China forces to use the UN as a front to manipulate Xinjiang-related issues are doomed to failure.