The long-awaited UN report into human rights abuses committed in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was finally published last week to a mixed reception. For some – principally the Chinese government – it went too far. Others thought it didn’t go far enough.
Many hadn’t expected the examination of abuses against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minority peoples, authored UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet, to see the light of day. And Beijing had made strenuous efforts to suppress the report, and influence its content.
But on August 31, ten minutes before Bachelet’s tenure as high commissioner was due to expire, the report finally went online.
