UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet releases controversial Uyghur report as she leaves office

“China resolutely opposes the release of the so-called ‘assessment of the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,'” the Beijing delegation to the international organization wrote in an official response to the report.

Four years ago, a United Nations panel of experts concluded that more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region had been placed in extrajudicial camps for “re-education” and indoctrination. It drew attention to “credible reports” of being held in

China initially denied the camps existed, but later said it had set up “vocational education and training centers” as a means of countering “extremism”. Beijing has called allegations of rights violations, genocide and forced labor in the region the “lie of the century.”