Thread by @TiranaHassan

Irrespective of how former UN Human Rights Chief @mbachelet handled the release of the #Xinjiang report, credit must be given to @UNHumanRights for a balanced assessment of the crimes committed under international law by #China. Thread👇

#China, in a grave discredit to its responsibilities as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, waged an unprecedented campaign of overt and covert political pressure against the OHCHR to prevent the publication of the report reuters.com/world/china/ex…

Notwithstanding Beijing's frantic disinformation efforts, evidence that China's policies in #Xinjiang amount to crimes against humanity-an extremely high threshold-is overwhelming, as documented by numerous investigations, including those published by @hrw and @amnesty

The scale and systematic character of the violations in #Xinjiang are not happenstance: they are the result of deliberate state policies, designed at the highest level of the Chinese state, to place in internment camps up to a million people on the sole basis of their ethnicity.

It is no longer possible for governments to hide abuses of this scale in #Xinjiang . Sattelite imagery and leaks of internal documents, all provide damning evidence. bbc.co.uk/news/extra/85q…

The report warrants a strong response from the UN Human Rights Council & its member states whose mission is to address human rights violations. Governments should establish an independent investigation & take all necessary steps to advance accountability & justice for victims.

This report is a reminder of how gross violations & state-sponsored repression continue to be committed under the guise of "counter-terrorism", "combatting terrorism" and "preventing violent extremism" all over the world. It is time for states who do this to be held accountable.