Status: 09/01/2022 10:11 a.m
The long-awaited report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet denounces serious human rights violations in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. China rejects the allegations as lies.
Just minutes before the end of her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet has presented her long-awaited report. The report is 49 pages long and the allegations weigh heavily. There is talk of serious human rights violations in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The allegations of torture and mistreatment of Uyghurs are credible. If people were detained arbitrarily and discriminatoryly, it could constitute crimes against humanity, the United Nations report said.
Wang: Sound could be sharper
Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch, a human rights NGO, said the report makes it difficult for the Chinese government to deny the allegations. Most human rights violations that Human Rights Watch has documented are listed there, Wang said.
However, I would have liked things to be addressed more clearly. Given the seriousness of human rights abuses and the mounting evidence that has accumulated over the years, the tone of the report could be sharper.
The US government and human rights organizations, among others, accuse China of genocide and cultural genocide in the Xinjiang region. This allegation is not made in Bachelet’s report.
China: Allegations are lies
For years, China has been criticized for its treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim-majority ethnic groups in the western Xinjiang region. According to research by observers, more than a million people have been locked up in re-education camps there, most of them Muslim men. There are reports of forced labor.
China rejects the allegations as lies and interference in internal affairs. The communist state and party leadership speaks of training centers and the fight against terrorism. The government in Beijing tried to prevent Bachelet’s report from being published until the very end.
Bachelet was repeatedly told that China opposed the report, Zhang Jun, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview yesterday. They are lies aimed at undermining China’s stability and development. According to Zhang Jun, the UN human rights commissioner should remain independent and not bow to pressure from Western countries.
The report is said to have been ready for about a year. At a press conference last week, the UN human rights commissioner spoke of enormous pressure from all sides.
Accusation: propaganda for China’s state leadership
Bachelet was in China in May and visited Xinjiang, among other places, but then refrained from criticizing the government in Beijing. Human rights organizations accused her of making propaganda for the Chinese government with her trip.
Human Rights Watch’s Wang also criticized Bachelet for not launching an independent investigation after her visit to Xinjiang:
And the fact that her report was published ten minutes before the end of her term makes it difficult to take important steps afterwards. She obviously intended it that way. And that leaves a dark stain on Bachelet’s work as UN human rights commissioner and shakes the credibility of the office.
Bachelet report: UN laments human rights violations in Xinjiang
Benjamin Eyssel, ARD Beijing, 09/01/2022 09:16 a.m