URAP Calls for Immediate Release of the Uyghur Report or Resignation
May 9, 2022
Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project demands the resignation of High Commissioner of Human Rights Michelle Bachelet if the human rights report on Uyghurs and China’s genocidal policies is not released immediately. We call on the Canada’s ambassador to the UN and the Hon. Melanie Joly, minister of Global Affair Canada to echo and support our call for Michelle Bachelet’s resignation if she does fulfil her basic duty to hold authoritative regimes such as China accountable for the most inhumane human rights violations such as the Uyghur genocide.
The High Commissioner neglects the duties of her office. The report commissioned to highlight the crimes against humanity, oppression, and genocide that is occurring in East Turkistan, called the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” by China, is said to be completed and awaiting publication. So she must publish it.
By delaying this report, the Office of the High Commissioner gives China carte blanche to deny, delay, and misinform the world about their policies and actions against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly demanded this report be released. On March 08, 2022, (Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project joined 193 organizations asking Michelle Bachelet share her report before her upcoming visit to East Turkistan. This request was met with silence. Because of the lack of transparency around the upcoming visit to China by Ms. Bachelet, Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project along with 59 international human rights groups, released a joint statement on April 18, 2022, setting out core preconditions to be met by the UN High Commissioner in order to have a credible and independent visit to China.
Before Bachelet sets foot on a plane to China it is essential that she meets with Uyghur groups, camp survivors, and those directly affected by the camps to hear their stories. Without this, a China visit would lack credibility and transparency.Currently, millions of Uyghurs are held en masse in concentration camps in an attempt to destroy the Uyghur people. Millions more are in forced labor programs where they mine quartz for solar panels, pick cotton for garments, or work in factories under the guise of “vocational training” to produce goods. Reports of sexual violence and rape have been made by survivors of concentration camps, giving insight to the horrific conditions Uyghurs endure in these camps.
We ask for human rights organizations and allies of Uyghurs globally to join the call for Ms. Bachelet to release the report, or resign. The Uyghur genocide cannot be ignored by the UN any longer, and the release of this report is a keystone in ensuring international action to end these ongoing atrocities.
Mehmet Tohti
Executive Director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project