Bob Rae calls on UN human rights chief to publish long-promised Uyghur report

Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae is calling on the UN's human rights chief to publish a long-anticipated report on China's alleged human rights violations against its Muslim minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Thursday the commission is "trying very hard" to fulfil her pledge to publish the report before her term ends on August 31. She said that she is under "tremendous pressure" from all sides.

Bachelet told reporters that she needed time to integrate new information from her May visit to China's Xinjiang region and to review Beijing's input on the unpublished report.

"There's no excuse for not getting it out. The only person that controls that is her. It's her report," Rae told host Vassy Kapelos on CBC News Network's Power & Politics Thursday.

"I don't think there's any question at all that the Chinese have been making very strong representations but I don't know under what process a human rights commission would say we're going to allow the perpetrators of this injustice — of this genocide — we're going to allow them to comment and see the report and review it and then get their feedback on it before we publish the report."

"I mean, what level of independence does that reflect? I'm not quite sure. I think if you have a report, you publish the report and you get it done."

China detained an estimated one to two million Uyghurs in what Beijing calls "re-education centres" or "deradicalization" camps.

A 2021 independent report drafted by dozens of experts in human rights, international law and genocide studies concluded that China "bears state responsibility for an ongoing genocide" against the Uyghurs. That report detailed a series of abuses, including mass internment, family separation and forced sterilization and abortions.

China denies the allegations, arguing its crackdown on Uyghurs was about addressing extremism.

The UN human rights chief's report has been in the works for three years, but China only allowed Bachelet and her team access to the Xinjiang region earlier this year.

Bachelet drew the ire of many human rights groups at the end of that visit when she thanked the Chinese government for its "invitation" and insisted her visit was "not an investigation."

While the Canadian government has stopped short of labelling China's treatment of Uyghurs a genocide, a substantial majority of MPs voted in 2021 to accuse the Chinese government of perpetrating a campaign of genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.