Foreign Affairs Minister Praises UN Report on China’s Human Rights Issues in Xinjiang

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Dec. 7, 2021. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly praised a United Nations report on the Chinese regime’s abuses of ethnic minorities in its northwestern Xinjiang Province, saying that it adds to the mounting evidence of the communist regime’s crimes against humanity.

Joly said the release of the recent assessment report on human rights concerns in Xinjiang by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), is “critical.”

“The findings reflect the credible accounts of grave human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang,” Joly said in a statement on Sept. 1.

“This report makes an important contribution to the mounting evidence of serious, systemic human rights abuses and violations occurring in Xinjiang,” Joly said.

“It finds that the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

The minister also urged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to “uphold its international human rights obligations” and respond to the concerns and recommendations raised in the report. She added that Canada will continue to work with its international allies to"ensure the Chinese government is held to account for its actions.”

The report said it has received numerous reports of the involuntary disappearance of members of the Uyghur Muslim communities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) since 2017.

It quoted another U.N. working body that found “dramatic” increases of such cases with the Chinese government’s introduction of the so-called “re-education” camps, where evidence of “torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, and forced labour” of ethnic minorities continue to emerge.

The OHCHR report said official statements from Beijing claimed that Xinjiang-related issues are “in essence about countering violent terrorism and separatism.” However, the report concluded that ”serious human rights violations have been committed“ in the region by the Chinese government ”in the context of [its] application of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism’ strategies.”

“The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities,” said the OHCHR report.

Joly also noted that “Canada has repeatedly expressed its grave concern” about the regime’s ongoing gross human rights violations inflicted on the ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which include the “mass arbitrary detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim ethnic minorities” as well as “widespread mass surveillance, political re-education, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labour, torture, and forced sterilization.”

The minister said she has also reiterated Canada’s position in meetings with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. Global Affairs Canada said in a statement that Joly had raised the Xinjiang issue during a call with Wang on April 5. The Chinese side, however, in its news release about the phone call, made no mention that the topic was raised.

Beijing has lashed out in response to the report. A U.N. representative issued a statement saying that “China firmly opposes” the report and that human rights should not be used “as a tool to interfere in the internal affairs” of U.N. member states.

It also attached a roughly 120-page report in defence of its actions in Xinjiang, justifying its so-called counter-terrorism and counter-extremism efforts. A spokesperson of the permanent mission of China to the U.N. described the OHCHR report as a “perverse product of U.S. and other Western forces’ coercive diplomacy.”