Diplomatic sources confirmed today that a European Union (EU) mission to Xinjiang has been stalled by a request to visit jailed Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.
China has said since 2019 that it has invited foreign diplomats and Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit the Xinjiang autonomous region. Human rights groups allege that more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are being held in detention camps.
But things are not showing much sign of progress.
A European diplomatic official told AFP that this was because the legation wanted to visit Tohti. Tohti is an ethnic Uighur economist who was sentenced to Life in prison in 2014 on separatist charges.
Tohti received the Sakharov Prize, the EU’s highest human rights award, in 2019.
The aforementioned diplomat said, “The consultations have stalled because the EU side has imposed conditions such as access to Tohti, and I don’t think that they will move soon.”
Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the EU, said yesterday that “almost all arrangements” for the EU envoys to visit Xinjiang had been made, but that “unacceptable demands” had put them at a standstill.
“They insisted on visiting a prisoner convicted under Chinese law, which is unacceptable, I’m sorry.”
Beijing authorities strongly deny the persecution of Uighurs in Xinjiang, among other charges, and say all prisoners have graduated from “vocational training centers.” China claims that the vocational training centers help eradicate regional extremism and improve people’s income.
Zhang said Foreign Minister Wang Yi extended an invitation to Bashelet on March 7 after Bashelet called for an independent and comprehensive investigation into human rights in Xinjiang in late February.
Zhang Ming insisted that Xinjiang is open to foreign diplomats, journalists and tourists. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said that all foreign journalists who have tried to report from Xinjiang over the past year have been subjected to widespread harassment and surveillance by Chinese authorities.
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