China’s treatment of Uighurs is ‘crimes against humanity’: Report

Human Rights Watch is the latest to document policies of mass detention, torture and cultural persecution in Xinjiang.

China is committing crimes against humanity in its treatment of the Uighur ethnic minority and other Turkic Muslims in the northwest region of Xinjiang, with Beijing responsible for “policies of mass detention, torture, and cultural persecution, among other offenses”, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. The 53-page report, titled Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots documented a “range of abuses” that also include enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, separation of families, forced returns to China, forced labour, sexual violence and violations of reproductive rights. The report, which was authored with the help of Stanford Law School’s Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic noted that while Beijing’s oppression of Turkic Muslims is “not a new phenomenon”, it has reached “unprecedented levels”.