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Michelle Bachelet, UN high commissioner for human rights, is under pressure to secure unfettered access to China’s Xinjiang region. Photo: Reuters
ChinaPolitics

UN human rights chief seeks Xinjiang visit this year amid ‘reports of serious violations’

  • Michelle Bachelet’s office has been negotiating with Beijing since 2018 and it’s the first time she has publicly suggested a timeline
  • She also says national security law imposed in Hong Kong has had a ‘chilling impact’ and trials of those charged will be ‘an important test’
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Reuters
Reuters
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The top UN human rights official on Monday said she hoped to agree terms for a visit this year to China, including its Xinjiang region, to look into reports of serious violations against Muslim Uygurs.

It was the first time that Michelle Bachelet had publicly suggested a timeline for the visit, which her office has been negotiating the terms of since September 2018.

Bachelet is under growing pressure from Western states to secure unfettered access to Xinjiang, where activists say more than 1 million Uygurs and other Turkic Muslims have been held in camps, some of them mistreated or subject to forced labour.

Beijing denies the accusations and describes the camps as vocational training facilities to combat religious extremism.

What is going on in Xinjiang and who are the Uygur Muslims?

“I continue to discuss with China modalities for a visit, including meaningful access, to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and hope this can be achieved this year, particularly as reports of serious human rights violations continue to emerge,” Bachelet told the opening of a Human Rights Council session.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports this year documenting practices that they said could meet criteria for crimes against humanity against Uygurs in Xinjiang.

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Bachelet also told the council that the national security law imposed in Hong Kong a year ago had had a “chilling impact” on democratic space and media in the city. She said 107 people had been arrested under the law, including 57 formally charged.

“This will be an important test of independence for Hong Kong’s judiciary in its willingness to uphold Hong Kong’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in accordance with the Basic Law,” she said.

Government officials in Beijing and Hong Kong say the national security law is needed to avert threats to national security, and that the rights and freedoms of ordinary Hong Kong people are being be protected.

Critics say it is being used to crush dissent in the global financial hub, an assertion Beijing rejects.

Canada was set to deliver a joint statement on behalf of several dozen countries voicing concern about alleged human rights violations in both Xinjiang and Hong Kong, diplomats said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: UN human rights chief seeks visit to Xinjiang
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