Direct pdf link to UN report

Select passages from the BBC article:

The UN has accused China of “serious human rights violations” in a long-awaited report into allegations of abuse in Xinjiang province.

China had urged the UN not to release the report - with Beijing calling it a “farce” arranged by Western powers.

The report assesses claims of abuse against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities, which China denies.

But investigators said they uncovered “credible evidence” of torture possibly amounting to “crimes against humanity”.

They accused China of using vague national security laws to clamp down on the rights of minorities and establishing “systems of arbitrary detention”.

The report, which was commissioned by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, said prisoners had been subjected to “patterns of ill-treatment” which included “incidents of sexual and gender-based violence”.

Others, they said, faced forced medical treatment and “discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies”.

The UN recommended that China immediately takes steps to release “all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” and suggested that some of Beijing’s actions could amount to the “commission of international crimes, including crimes against humanity”.

…

China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

In response to the Xinjiang Police Files, China’s foreign ministry spokesman told the BBC that the documents were “the latest example of anti-China voices trying to smear China”. He said Xinjiang enjoyed stability and prosperity and residents were living happy, fulfilled lives.

China says the crackdown in Xinjiang is necessary to prevent terrorism and root out Islamist extremism and the camps are an effective tool for re-educating inmates in its fight against terrorism.

It insists that Uyghur militants are waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest, but it is accused of exaggerating the threat in order to justify repression of the Uyghurs.

China has dismissed claims it is trying to reduce the Uyghur population through mass sterilisations as “baseless”, and says allegations of forced labour are “completely fabricated”.

Criticism of the report (Reddit comment):

A lot more underwhelming that I expected. Seems to boil down to a few main points:

1. The XUAR has seen a large rise in acts of terrorism related to religious extremism
2. To prevent this, China implemented a system of “Vocational Education and Training Centres” (VETCs) to rehabilitate and educate away the extremism

The concern then follows:

1. China has implemented a system of policing that is overly vague and overreaching, that allows the government to easily place citizens in the VETCs.
2. China trains their police force in ridiculous manners to identify religious extremism
3. Once transferred to a VETC, the conditions there are brutal and more akin to a torturous prison.
4. There are also concerns of erasure of religion and attempted forced birth control

My issue with the report, is the use of a small amount of interviews declared credible, to then corroborate the rest of the sources. These sources include the classic and long debunked Zenz, Xinjiang Police Files, unofficial document translations (long history of bias in translations), etc. Given the long history of terrible witness reliability (Nayirah testimony, SK $900,000 reward to NK defectors, Iraq’s WMDs, etc), I’m still going to hold off on agreeing with the accusations of genocide.