The final minutes of Michelle Bachelet's four-year tenure must have been tumultuous.

At 11:48 p.m., just 12 minutes before the end of her mandate, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights sent out its report on China's human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Human rights activists and relatives of victims had been waiting for this for almost a year.

Some had already given up hope and believed that Bachelet had bowed to pressure from China.

She of all people, the former Chilean President, whose father was tortured by the Pinochet regime and died in prison.

The Xinjiang report, which Bachelet then submitted, was clear: "Serious violations of human rights" had been committed in Xinjiang that "could constitute crimes against humanity".

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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In the 48-page report, many of the allegations that have been leveled against China for a long time are rated as “credible”.

This applies, for example, to allegations of torture and sexual violence in detention camps.

At least in the years 2017 to 2019 there had been "large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty".

There is no reliable information about the exact number of those affected.

From the information available, however, it can be concluded that "a substantial proportion of the Uyghur and other majority Muslim population" was interned.

The Office of the High Commissioner is unable to verify whether the camps are still operational.

However, there are indications that the focus has shifted from extrajudicial detention to imprisonment.

The number of convictions to long prison terms has increased “dramatically”.

Documents relating to the court cases indicated that the judges "considered any type of violation of the law by a Muslim as allegedly 'extremist'".

Bachelet got an idea on the spot

The Chilean refrained from presenting the paper personally.

Beijing had tried by all means to prevent the publication.

China's response to the report, which the High Commission published as an appendix, is 131 pages.

According to Bachelet, they were only submitted last week.

That was the reason for the publication at the very last minute.

A first, at least almost finalized, version of the Xinjiang report was available almost a year ago, as Bachelet confirmed at the time.

The Chinese leadership initially managed to prevent its publication by granting the High Commissioner access to the Xinjiang region.

This visit, for the course of which Bachelet was sharply criticized internationally, was not reflected in the final version.

Human rights groups and victims' relatives welcomed the release on Thursday.

"The damning findings explain why the Chinese government tried tooth and nail to prevent the Xinjiang report from being released," said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch China director.

Her German colleague Wenzel Michalski expressed the hope that the report would dispel the arguments of the skeptics in Germany “in the Left Party and in German industry”.

China sharply criticized the report.

According to a statement by the Chinese representation in Geneva, he relied “as his main sources on disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces”.

Bachelet had done a lot to refute the accusation of partisanship.

Despite harsh criticism from the United States, she had traveled to China.

The analysis elaborates on Beijing's account of the situation in Xinjiang.

It is highlighted that China has failed to comply with UN requests for detailed information.