Uighurs urge UN to probe China's 're-education camps' in Xinjiang

Uighur Muslims in Türkiye have urged the UN human rights chief to independently investigate the so-called "re-education camps" and allegations of rights abuses, torture and even genocide when she visits China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region this month.

"I am calling on the UN rights chief to walk freely in the concentration camps and talk freely with the people, without surveillance cameras or without the presence of Chinese police, to reveal to the world the human rights situation there," Mirza Ahmet Ilyasoglu, a Uighur living in Türkiye, told a press conference in Istanbul on Tuesday.

"Because if the UN goes there and listens to the one-sided Chinese thesis ... it would come up with a completely false report which would be very embarrassing for the UN and the human rights agency," he said.

The Uighur community in Türkiye has staged daily protests outside the Chinese consulate in Istanbul over the past few years, holding pictures of their relatives and family members with whom they lost touch for months, and in some cases even years.

In March, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said she would pay a visit to China, including Xinjiang, in May, after an agreement with Beijing, as rights advocates mounted pressure for her office to release its long-postponed report on the rights situation there.

Rights groups say that at least one million mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in "re-education camps" spread across the vast northwestern Chinese region, where China is accused of widespread human rights abuses.

Human rights groups and many foreign governments say they have evidence of what they say are mass detentions, forced labour, political indoctrination, torture and forced sterilisation. Washington has called it "genocide."

China strongly denies the allegations and says it is running vocational training programmes and work schemes to help stamp out extremism in the region.

READ MORE: US seeks 'unhindered' access for UN to probe Uighur treatment in China

Uighurs seek relatives' whereabouts 

Medine Nazimi, a Uighur woman whose sister is held in one of the camps in Xinjiang, demanded "true answers" about her whereabouts, holding a picture of her with the writing "China, Release my sister!".

"We want the United Nations to go to our homeland, we want you to check everything. Don't believe the Chinese government, you have to believe us," she said.

"My sister is only one of the concentration camp victims ... Where is she? Is she healthy? Is she okay? I don't know," said Nazimi, who has not received any news from her sister for five years.

"The Chinese government separated us from our loved ones. We don't get any information about them. We want the UN to close the concentration camps and rescue our family members."

Speaking to the AFP news agency, 50-year-old Fatma Aziz claimed that the Chinese government forced their relatives to stay at home ahead of the UN visit, using the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse.

"My aunt is stuck with her two kids in Kashgar. The Chinese jailed her husband just because he recited the Quran," Aziz said. "We want the UN to free our relatives."

Aziz fled to Türkiye in 2015 along with her husband and five children.

Uighurs' ties with Türkiye

Uighurs speak a Turkic language and have cultural ties with predominantly Muslim Türkiye, which makes it a favoured destination for avoiding persecution back home.

Gulden Sonmez, a Turkish lawyer, hoped that the UN rights chief would be able to walk the streets of the Uighur region unfettered.

"If she succeeds, she will see this truth: the lands of East Turkestan have nearly completely been transformed into concentration camps. We are talking about millions of people," she said.

In January, a group of Uighurs lodged a criminal complaint with a Turkish prosecutor against Chinese authorities, accusing them of rape, torture and forced labour.

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