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The U.N.’s new human right chief said his agency has documented China’s arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and the separation of children from their families in comments during a global update on human rights on Wednesday in Geneva.

Volker Türk, who took over last September, said his office has opened up channels of communication with various actors to follow up on human rights issues in China, including the protection of minorities such as Uyghurs, Tibetans and other groups.

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) has been nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize by Canadian Member of Parliament (MP), chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights (SDIR), and co-chair of the Canada-Uyghur Parliamentary Friendship Group, Sameer Zuberi, together with Canadian MP and SDIR co-chair Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe and leader of the Young Liberals in Norway, Ane Breivik.

Move shows ‘what is happening to the Uyghurs is unacceptable’, says MP after non-binding parliamentary ballot with prime minister’s support

Rights groups urge other countries to follow the lead of the U.S. and several other Western countries that are asking the United Nations Human Rights Council to hold a debate in its next session in 2023 on China’s human rights record in the Xinjiang region.

“The international community must remember its obligation to end atrocity crimes like genocide and crimes against humanity,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress.

• The UN is facing the decision of how to respond to Chinese human rights violations of Uyghur Muslims.
• A recent UN report outlined human rights abuses, which include arbitrary imprisonment.
• China rejects the allegations and said action taken against the state will not work.

Multiple members of the UN Human Rights Council are considering bringing action against China over its treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Reuters reported.

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.

This portrait of a crying Uyghur woman lays bare the heartbreaking human reality of China’s concentration camps.

Beijing has long been accused of discriminating against its minority population of Uyghur Muslims.

The government began building so-called ‘re-education’ camps in the northwest Xinjiang region in 2017 – after Uyghurs were blamed for several terrorist attacks.

Documents detailing shoot-to-kill policy for people who try to escape published as UN human rights chief visits region

One of the leaked images. China’s ruling Communist party is accused of detaining more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Photograph: BBCVincent Ni China affairs correspondentWed 25 May 2022 00.42 BSTFirst published on Tue 24 May 2022 13.30 BST

(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately release all remaining imprisoned students of the Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, Human Rights Watch said today. A government list of prisoners leaked in December 2021 indicates that six of the seven students on the list were sentenced in December 2014 to between three-and-a-half and eight years in prison. Although they would have completed their sentences, it is unclear whether they have been released.