A newly released United Nations report of "serious human rights violations" against Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region is "significant" and "helpful" in addressing the long-standing issue, a visiting Uyghur-American official said Thursday in Taipei.
Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel, who chairs the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, also called on the U.N. to hold an emergency session to address the issue.
Turkel made the comments at a press conference in Taipei, hours after the long-awaited report was released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The detention of Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim groups in Xinjiang is arbitrary and discriminatory, within the context of the Chinese government's "application of counter-terrorism and counter-'extremism' strategies," the U.N. report said.
According to the report, investigators have said they found "credible evidence" of torture, possibly amounting to "international crimes, including crimes against humanity" in Xinjiang.
The report recommended that China immediately takes steps to release "all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty."
The report was released Wednesday, four years after a U.N. committee called attention to "credible reports" that more than 1 million Uyghurs and people of other Muslim minority groups were being held in extrajudicial camps in Xinjiang for "re-education" and indoctrination.
China, however, has long insisted that mass "vocational education and training" is necessary to counter terrorism and alleviate poverty in its northwestern Xinjiang region, where some 10 million Uyghurs live, most of them Muslims.
Turkel, who was born in a Xinjiang "re-education camp" at the height of China's Cultural Revolution, told reporters in Taipei that the U.N report is "significant" and "helpful, even though it does not tell the full story and some of the language is "wishy washy."
He also suggested that with the release of the report, the U.N. should hold an emergency session "right away."
"We need an emergency session," Turkel said. "I cannot imagine any country locking up its 1 million Muslim population... The U.N. needs to do what it's supposed to do under the U.N. mandate."
The U.N. should encourage its members to take a stance on the issue, as it is a huge and complicated problem, and the United States cannot do it alone, he said, referring to the fact that the U.S. has been a vocal critic on the Xinjiang issue and has accused China of genocide.
As an American official, Turkel said, he expects to see more actions by the U.S. government, including sanctions targeting individuals and entities responsible for the forced labor in the Xinjiang "re-education" camps.
On the question of what the average citizen could do to help, Turkel said they could try to educate the general public about the gravity of the Xinjiang problem.
"The other thing I think that people can do in here is just to stop buying 'made in China' products," he said, mentioning in particular cotton made in Xinjiang.
"Otherwise, you're feeding this genocide. Otherwise, you're inadvertently contributing financially to this ongoing genocide," he said.
Turkel spent the first few months of his life in a detention camp in Xinjiang with his mother. He went to the United States in 1995 as a student and was later granted asylum by the American government.
In September 2020, he was listed by TIME magazine among the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and in June this year, he was appointed chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Turkel is on a visit to Taiwan to attend the 2022 Regional Religious Freedom Forum in Taipei, which was held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Asked whether he had a message for the Taiwanese people, Turkel said they need to face the real threat of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
"Taiwanese people also need to realize that this democracy is worth fighting for. This is about our future," he said.
Thursday's press event was held to promote Turkel's book "No Escape," which is about Beijing's persecution of the Uyghur people in China and across the globe.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel