The release of the historic UN report was delayed due to Chinese government
pressure; moreover, on October 6, the Human Rights Council rejected a draft
decision to hold a debate on the issue, 19 votes against, and only 17 in favour with
11 abstentions of member states.
Uyghur organizations have, for many years, supported the work of the UN human
rights office, but access to the system has been a major struggle. For example, in
2017, World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa was attending a forum on
indigenous issues at the UN headquarters in New York. Although he was fully
accredited to participate in the gathering, Isa said that he was confronted by UN
security who told him to leave the premises immediately. He was given no reason
for this, and although his accreditation remained valid, he was not allowed to reenter the building later that day or when the forum resumed on April 28. When
Human Rights Watch sought an explanation, the spokesperson’s office said it had
no information on the specific case.
This was just one incident, but Uyghur human rights defenders and organizations
have faced a number of other challenges accessing the UN human rights system.
A growing number of governments have also expressed alarm about
the human rights situation in China. The U.S. State Department determined in
January 2021 that this treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples amounted to
genocide and crimes against humanity, and parliaments in Canada, the United
Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, the Czech
Republic and the European Parliament have all passed motions or resolutions
condemning the atrocity crimes.
Therefore we urge the UN to put pressure on the Chinese government to
implement the recommendations that the UN report put forward in its report.
Recommendations:
1. The UN needs to solve the problem of access to the UN itself—Uyghur or
Tibetan groups will never be able to get consultative status because the
Chinese government vetoes these applications
2. Because the UN is so state-centric (governments have most of the power),
much more needs to be done in all agencies (not just the Office of the High
Commission for Human Rights) to address minority rights issues, otherwise
governments will feel no pressure to give better treatment to minority groups