Eleven children from my family have been taken from their parents in Xinjiang – the UN chief must not remain silent

It has already been a year since the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination said it had credible evidence that more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs and minorities in China were being held in internment camps and forced into “political camps for indoctrination”, turning the Uighur autonomous region into a “no rights zone”.

As the United Nations General Assembly meets this week, UN chief António Guterres should denounce China’s crimes against Uighurs. On Tuesday, the US led more than 30 countries in condemning what it called China’s “horrific campaign of repression” against Muslims in Xinjiang. Assistant secretary of state John Sullivan said the UN and its member states had “a singular responsibility to speak up when survivor after survivor recounts the horrors of state repression”.

Drone footage has emerged showing police leading hundreds of blindfolded and shackled men from a train in what is believed to be a transfer of inmates in Xinjiang. The video, posted anonymously on YouTube last week, shows what appear to be Uighur Muslims or people from other minorities wearing blue and yellow uniforms, with shaven heads, their eyes covered, sitting in rows on the ground and later being led away by police. Prisoners in China are often transferred with handcuffs and masks covering their faces

• China footage reveals hundreds of blindfolded and shackled prisoners