Canadian Muslim rights group urges release of UN's Uyghur report

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA) - The long-anticipated UN report on the alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghurs should be made public now, Justice for All Canada said Friday.

The Canadian Muslim organization, a long-time champion of the plight of the Muslim minority Uyghurs, agreed with Canada's UN ambassador Bob Rae who said there is "no excuse" for the delay in publishing the report.

"Canada’s UN representative Bob Rae was instrumental in a previous ground-breaking report that set the stage for a global humanitarian response to the Rohingya genocide," Taha Ghayyur, the executive director of Justice For All Canada, told Anadolu Agency in an email interview on Friday.

"Canadian activists are calling for similar swift justice and intervention on behalf of Uyghur Muslims, who are living through one of the worst modern genocides since WWII."

Rae is not buying the line from Michelle Bachelet, UN high commissioner for human rights, who said she is "trying very hard" to issue the report but is under "tremendous pressure."

"There is no excuse for not getting it out," Rae told CBC, Canada's state broadcaster on Thursday. "The only person that controls that is her. It's her report."

"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," Rae said.

China has been accused by human rights groups of keeping more than a million Uyghurs in detention camps against their will.

China has denied committing any human rights violation but insists the "re-education camps" were necessary to clamp down on extremism by Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.

Bachelet earlier promised to make the report public by Aug. 31.