UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has criticized China for restricting civil rights and political freedoms in the name of national security and the fight against epidemics. She reiterated the need for an independent and comprehensive investigation into the human rights situation in Xinjiang.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday (Feb. 26), Bachelet praised China’s achievements in the fight against the Epidemic, but noted that Chinese citizens’ “fundamental rights and civil liberties continue to be suppressed in the name of national security and the fight against the epidemic.”
Bachelet also highlighted the fact that more than 600 people in Hong Kong are being investigated for participating in protests.
Evidence is mounting that in recent years, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have subjected Uighurs and other minorities to mass arbitrary detention in the name of counter-terrorism, with millions of Uighur Muslims detained in what Chinese officials call “vocational training centers” for “ideological reform” and forced labor. “and forced labor.
Bachelet said, “In the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, publicly available information indicates the need for an independent and comprehensive assessment of the human rights situation there.” Bachelet’s office is conducting an investigation into human rights issues such as arbitrary detentions, abuses, and sexual violence that have occurred in facilities in China.
Bachelet got his hands dirty in scheduling a visit to China before taking over the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2018. But that work has been intermittent and has not gone well. Bachelet revealed that her office is seeking to find “mutually agreeable terms” for her visit.
According to the Associated Press, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office of Human Rights, said discussions are underway on technical preparations to pave the way for Bachelet’s visit to China. She said the preparations are necessary to ensure a substantive outcome of Bachelet’s visit to China.
Bachelet said, “I believe that as the dialogue proceeds, we will find mutually acceptable terms for my visit to China.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin recently said that China has extended an invitation to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang, but is firmly opposed to “presumed guilty so-called ‘investigations'” in Xinjiang.
The UN Human Rights Council began its 2021 high-level session on Monday. China is one of the 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council.
Bachelet said last year that reports on the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang come from many sources and that “my team is working to verify the authenticity of this material. “We will be working on an in-depth analysis of the human rights situation in China, including the situation of the Uighur minority,” she told a meeting of the Human Rights Council.
British Foreign Secretary George Raab on Feb. 22 condemned China’s “torture, forced labor and sterilization” of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, saying these acts are happening on a large scale. He also said that the rights of Hong Kong people are being “systematically violated.”
Raab called on U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet or another independent expert to have “urgent and unrestricted” access to Xinjiang. He said the UN Human Rights Council should adopt a resolution to that effect.
In a statement Feb. 4, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne also called for a U.N. investigation into alleged Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang and urged China to allow international observers, including U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet, immediate and unrestricted access to the region.
A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Payne said earlier this month that “these latest reports of systematic torture and abuse of women are deeply troubling …… We believe transparency is critical and continue to urge China to allow international observers, including U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle -Bachelet to allow international observers, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, meaningful and unrestricted access to Xinjiang as soon as possible.”
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