CFU stressed that, instead of addressing the UN’s recommendations, Beijing has escalated its repression…reports Asian Lite News
On August 31, 2025, Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) marked the third anniversary of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) landmark assessment on abuses in East Turkistan, urging urgent international action.
The 2022 report concluded that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
CFU stressed that, instead of addressing the UN’s recommendations, Beijing has escalated its repression. The organisation said the anniversary underscored both the urgent need for accountability and the risks of global inaction.
The OHCHR assessment was the first UN document to recognise the scale of abuses in East Turkistan, including mass arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, and cultural erasure. Since then, CFU noted, the CCP has intensified its campaign. Just weeks ago, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor voiced alarm over the torture, denial of medical care, and enforced disappearances of imprisoned activists in China, including Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti.
Fresh findings add to the concerns. A 2025 report by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded that atrocity-linked state policies—such as forced labour, family separations, residential schools, and birth prevention measures—remain in place or are expanding. Research by China scholar Dr Adrian Zenz revealed that land transfers in the Uyghur region surged nearly 50-fold between 2001 and 2021, forcing many ethnic farmers to surrender their land and enter state-controlled labour.
“For Uyghur families, three years have passed with no relief, no justice, and no answers—only more repression,” said Rushan Abbas, Founder and Executive Director of CFU. “Each year of inaction emboldens the regime and deepens the suffering of the victims. The United Nations must move beyond engagements and take meaningful steps to implement the OHCHR’s recommendations and end the crimes against humanity committed against the Uyghurs.”
CFU reiterated its solidarity with victims of CCP repression and called on governments and international institutions to act. The group urged that the OHCHR assessment should not remain a historical document but serve as a catalyst for justice, accountability, and the defence of human rights.
