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.
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.
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.
