China: Decade of Impunity for Crimes Against Uyghurs

(New York) – The Chinese government’s decade-long severe repression against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, amounting to crimes against humanity, deserves a stronger response from the international community, Human Rights Watch said today. Ten years after the Chinese Communist Party sharply escalated abuses against Uyghurs in the far western Xinjiang region, the crackdown on rights remains severe. Current evidence shows continued mass arbitrary detention, unjust imprisonment, mass surveillance, cultural and religious erasure, restrictions on travel and communication, and pressure on Uyghurs abroad, even as Chinese authorities promote a public image of normalcy in Xinjiang. State-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang affects the global supply chains, in sectors including automotive, solar panels, apparel, seafood, agricultural products, and critical minerals. “Rather than ending its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and bringing justice for hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs whose lives have been destroyed, the Chinese government persists in its atrocities and silences critical voices, even abroad,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The international community’s earlier strong response has fizzled, allowing the Chinese government to shamelessly promote a false sense of normalcy in the region.” Xi Jinping’s “strike hard campaign against violent terrorism” (严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动) began in Xinjiang in 2014. Repression escalated sharply with the August 29, 2016, appointment of a former Communist Party chief, Chen Quanguo, in Xinjiang. The campaign culminated in the arbitrary detention of an estimated one million Uyghurs in “political education” camps. Chen Quanguo had previously served as party secretary in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Since then, although some of these camps appear to have closed, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims remain in prison, according to available official figures. They include prominent public figures such as Ilham Tohti, Rahile Dawut, Gushan Abbas, Yalqun Rozi, and Ekpar Asat. Xinjiang appears to have the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size, according to a May 2026 Financial Times analysis. More than 140,000 children in southern Xinjiang were separated from their parents between 2017 and 2018, in large part due to arbitrary detention, according to a July 2026 analysis and estimate by an international group, Xinjiang Victims Database. Some children were held in state-run orphanages. The situation for these children remains unclear. Many Uyghurs living abroad are unable to contact their families—including their children—in China. Authorities maintain severe restrictions and controls on Uyghurs who seek to travel abroad while permitting select Uyghurs in the diaspora to make restricted visits to Xinjiang. Some who returned have said that the authorities pressed them to provide information about activists abroad. Chinese authorities engage in transnational repression to silence Uyghurs living abroad. Beijing dismisses all calls to end its severe repression in Xinjiang, insisting during top leaders’ official visits to the region that measures to “safeguard social stability” are priorities. Some governments have taken important steps to respond to these abuses over the past decade. In 2021, the US government enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which establishes a presumption that goods made wholly or in part in Xinjiang are linked to forced labor and bars them from being brought into the US. The EU has also enacted an import ban on products produced with forced labor. In 2021, the US, the European Union, the UK, and Canada imposed targeted sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for abuses in Xinjiang. Other governments, including Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan, have shielded Beijing from scrutiny at the UN; and governments including Thailand have deported Uyghurs to China despite the grave risks of torture and other abuses they face upon return. In 2023, in response to such forced returns, Canada committed to resettle 10,000 Uyghur refugees. On August 31, 2022, the UN Human Rights Office released a landmark report concluding, based on extensive research and analysis, that grave abuses in Xinjiang “may constitute … crimes against humanity.” Beijing dismissed the UN report. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, acknowledged, in August 2024, that “many problematic laws and policies remain in place” in Xinjiang. In February 2026, he expressed “regret[s]” at China’s “lack of follow-up … on previous recommendations and on accountability.” In June 2026 he similarly expressed concerns over China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which formalized existing policies to erase minority rights. His office has not, however, provided substantive public updates on its ongoing monitoring of the region since 2022. Rights groups have been encouraging him to take a firmer line with Beijing and to follow up forcefully and publicly on the recommendations made by his office, given the gravity of their own conclusions, and acknowledgment of the lack of progress. As Türk enters his second term as high commissioner, with no discernable progress four years after the publication of his office’s landmark Xinjiang report, he should heed the calls of Uyghur victims and their families to take a more robust approach. Governments should also do more to hold the Chinese government accountable for its ongoing repression in Xinjiang. Countries from all regional and political groups should work together to issue a strong joint statement at the upcoming session of the UN Human Rights Council condemning Chinese government’s crimes against humanity. They should convene a dedicated discussion on the situation in Xinjiang, to follow up on the recommendations of the 2022 report. More governments, including Canada, Australia, the UK, and Japan, should also adopt legislation prohibiting the imports of goods linked to forced labor, including measures specifically targeting goods from Xinjiang. The EU should ensure that Xinjiang is listed as a high-risk area in its forthcoming forced labor database. Governments should also adopt measures to protect their citizens and residents from Beijing’s acts of transnational repression, Human Rights Watch said. “Over 10 years of repression in Xinjiang, governments have done far too little to hold the Chinese government accountable for its abuses,” Uluyol said. “Governments should use all tools at their disposal to press Beijing to end its crimes, including by enacting and enforcing forced labor import bans to counter Uyghur forced labor, and imposing targeted sanctions against officials responsible for abuses in Xinjiang.”