China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslims in its Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity, the UN human rights chief said.
Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke out against human rights including "arbitrary and discriminatory detention" in a long-awaited report on Wednesday, shortly before her four-year term ended.
The UN Human Rights Office said in the 48-page report that "serious human rights violations have been committed" in Xinjiang "in the context of the government's application of counter-terrorism and counter-'extremism' strategies".
"The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups ... may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity," it said.
She recommended the Chinese government takes prompt steps to release all those detained in training centres, prisons or detention facilities.
"There are credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies since 2017," the office said.
It added that a lack of government data "makes it difficult to draw conclusions on the full extent of current enforcement of these policies and associated violations of reproductive rights."
Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. The United States has accused China of genocide.
China has vigorously denied the allegations and its mission in Geneva described the report as a "farce" planned by the United States, Western nations and anti-China forces based on false information and the assumption of guilt.
Speaking ahead of the report's release, China's ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Zhang Jun, said Beijing had repeatedly voiced opposition to it. He said the UN human rights chief should not interfere in China's internal affairs.
"We all know, so well, that the so-called Xinjiang issue is a completely fabricated lie out of political motivations and its purpose definitely is to undermine China's stability and to obstruct China's development," Zhang told reporters on Wednesday.
"We do not think it will produce any good to anyone, it simply undermines the cooperation between the United Nations and a member state," he said.
Dilxat Raxit of the World Uyghur Congress, a group based abroad, said the report confirmed "solid evidence of atrocities" against Uyghurs, but wished it had gone further.
"I regret that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights did not characterise these extreme atrocities in China as genocide," he said.
Bachelet, 70, has in the past been criticised for being too soft on China and now as she plans to return to Chile in retirement, there are claims she has undermined the report by leaving.
"Frankly to issue the report as she's walking out the door minimizes the report," Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch said.
"By issuing and running she is giving up, she's not doing anything with it, (she is) just kind of dropping it into the bin and leaving the office."
Still, Human Rights Watch described the report as ground breaking.
"Victims and their families whom the Chinese government has long vilified have at long last seen their persecution recognised, and can now look to the UN and its member states for action to hold those responsible accountable," said John Fisher, its global advocacy deputy director.
