UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet released the delayed report on the situation in Xinjiang in northwest China late Wednesday, minutes before she left the post.

According to the report, there is support for claims of human rights violations and a systematic oppression of ethnic groups in the province.

Stories of torture are seen as credible and urgent action is demanded from the international community.

Controversial visit

In May, Bachelet made a controversial visit to China and, among other things, visited the province of Xinjiang, where brutal repression against ethnic groups is considered to have been systematic.

The US government has even considered China's conduct in Xinjiang "genocide".

However, the report does not address claims about genocide in particular.

Beijing has vehemently denied the allegations, saying it runs vocational training centers in Xinjiang designed to counter extremism.

The trip in May attracted sharp international criticism as many countries considered it a propaganda trip arranged by the Chinese Communist Party.

Bachelet then claimed that the six-day trip could improve continued contacts with China and Beijing.

"Dialogue and gaining more understanding is not the same as tolerating, overlooking or turning a blind eye.

And that does not rule out my speaking out," writes Bachelet in an email to AFP.

"a farce"

Earlier on Wednesday, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said the report was a "farce" and that he hoped Bachelet would not publish it.

- We firmly oppose the UN Office for Human Rights releasing the so-called Xinjiang-related report.

This report is a farce orchestrated by the US and a small number of Western powers, he said.

Zhang Jun, China's UN ambassador in New York, said Wednesday that Bachelet bowed to political pressure from the West.

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Watch when SVT's Asia correspondent Ulrika Bergsten is pursued by the police and encounters resistance even from Uyghurs.

Photo: Ronald Verhoeven, SVT