On Oct. 14, the United Nations Human Rights Council confirmed China’s membership, though with fewer votes than when it last stood for election to the council in 2016. Beijing has served as a council member for 12 of the last 14 years, despite having an appalling record of human rights abuses. The new three-year term means that it can continue to influence the monitoring of human rights violations around the world, including arbitrary detentions.
Over the past two years, Chinese authorities have detained more than 1 million people in some 400 internment camps across the Xinjiang region. Most of the prisoners are Muslim, primarily Uighurs and Kazakhs. But in the camps they are forced to abandon their religion, espouse Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology, and learn to speak Mandarin. China initially denied the existence of the camps, but it now acknowledges them as “reeducation” camps intended for counterterrorism. Despite the government’s whitewashing, it’s clear to the outside world that the camps in Xinjiang are modern concentration camps—the sites of a cultural genocide.
