BEIJING: The United Nations on Wednesday delivered a milestone report itemizing serious denials of basic liberties by China against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Here is a summary on the district and individuals who live there:
The huge district of Xinjiang lies in China's far west and makes up around one-6th of the country's mainland region.
Its populace of around 26 million is ethnically different, including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other minority gatherings.
An asset rich locale of desert, meadow and mountain ranges, Xinjiang borders eight countries including Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Lying on the antiquated Silk Road, it holds significant regular assets like coal, oil and gas, as well as valuable metals and stones.
The locale has swung all through Chinese rule throughout the long term, however fell once more into Beijing's circle as the Communist Party sent off a military-drove settlement program in the wake of assuming command over the country in 1949.
The Uyghurs are a generally Muslim ethnic gathering who communicate in a Turkic language and are socially nearer to networks in Central Asia than Beijing.
Around 12 million of them live in Xinjiang - - making up around 45% of the populace - - with their social heartlands lying essentially in the district's dry south.
In 1953, the Uyghur populace was in excess of 75% of the locale, as per a statistics refered to in the UN report. Then, at that point, the ethnic Han Chinese represented seven percent. That number presently remains at around 42%.
By and large, some Uyghurs have gone against Chinese rule and leaned toward the foundation of an autonomous state known as East Turkestan.
They say Beijing has checked Uyghur strict and social articulation and principally improved its Han larger part through advancement projects in Xinjiang.
Beijing has moved forward safety efforts in Xinjiang lately in what it calls a work to battle dissent and Islamic fanaticism.
Fierce conflicts including both Uyghurs and Han killed around 200 individuals in the local capital Urumqi in 2009.
A spate of obvious fear monger episodes happened throughout the next years, remembering a 2013 assault for Beijing's Tiananmen Square and a self destruction bombarding at Urumqi train station in 2014.
Specialists answered with a mission to "strike hard" against supposed psychological oppression, building security designated spots in Xinjiang's urban communities while likewise leading house attacks and excepting specific articulations of Islamic confidence.
The crackdown has extended decisively beginning around 2017 as Beijing has promised to destroy radical idea unequivocally.
Beijing stands blamed for detaining north of 1,000,000 Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in an organization of confinement offices across Xinjiang.
Campaigners and Uyghurs abroad have said a variety of misuses happens inside the offices, including torment, constrained work, constrained disinfection and political teaching.
The UN report definite "believable" proof of torment, constrained clinical treatment and sexual or orientation based viciousness.
In any case, it avoided naming Beijing's activities a "decimation", as the United States and a few other Western legislators have done.
China has long denied the claims, considering them the "lie of the 100 years" and demanding its activities in Xinjiang have assisted with combatting radicalism and improve advancement.
It says the offices are professional instructional hubs that individuals go to independently.