The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, will begin a controversial five-day official trip to China on Monday, which will include a stage in Xinjiang. The NGOs allege that the visit of the former Chilean president at the invitation of Beijing, which has taken four years to negotiate, will not take place in the necessary conditions to independently establish the human rights situation of the Uyghur ethnic group and other Muslim minorities in that country. Chinese western region. According to human rights organizations, which together with Western governments and the UN itself have denounced serious abuses against the Uyghurs, the trip runs the risk of becoming a mere “public relations operation” for the government of President Xi Jinping. .
Since the Office of the High Commissioner raised in 2018 the desire to travel to Xinjiang and enjoy “meaningful access” and without obstacles to people and places in the region home to the Uyghur minority, Beijing had indicated that it would only accept a visit “ friendly”. Bachelet’s trip to China is the first by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights since Louise Arbor’s in 2005. According to Bachelet’s office, the international official will visit Guangzhou and the cities of Kashgar and Urumqi in Xinjiang. She will not travel to Beijing, as the capital is in a state of semi-lockdown due to an outbreak of coronavirus. Although she will hold meetings with representatives of national and local governments, at least one part will be held by videoconference, such as a conversation with foreign diplomats stationed in the Chinese capital.
He will also meet with “civil society organizations, business representatives and academics” and deliver a speech to Guangzhou University students. On the 28th, the last of his stay, she will issue a statement on the conclusions of his visit and offer a press conference. Bachelet’s office has not offered more specific information on the terms in which the visit will take place.
It is unlikely that among the personalities with whom the former head of state will meet is the academic Ilham Tohti, a defender of equal rights between the Uyghurs and the Han – the majority ethnic group in China – and sentenced to life imprisonment after being declared guilty of separatism in 2014. Beijing has since systematically denied every request from diplomats and foreign representatives to visit him in prison.
The Office of the High Commissioner, Western governments and human rights organizations accuse China of serious abuses against the Uyghur minority, including forced labor. Some calculations suggest that more than a million members of this ethnic group, out of a total of 12 million in Xinjiang, were sent to re-education camps as part of the campaign that Beijing launched in 2016 after a series of violent attacks in the previous years.
Xi’s government alleges that these camps are vocational training centers where residents come voluntarily to learn a trade and the Mandarin language. According to Beijing, the centers have been a fundamental tool against extremism and independence in the region, and the vast majority have been closed or converted after fulfilling their mission. Some international analysts consider that the rest have been transformed into high security centers.
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In June last year, more than 40 countries at the UN Human Rights Council called for “unrestricted access” to Xinjiang. The NGOs consider that this access should include the possibility of speaking freely with anyone, access to the interior of prisons and the centers that they consider to be for re-education.
More than 200 of these organizations have launched an appeal for the visit to be cancelled, considering that the trip will not have the conditions for Bachelet to be able to examine the situation on the ground independently.
The NGOs also demand the publication of the report on Xinjiang drawn up by the Office of the High Commissioner, in consultation with experts, and that the UN body indicated at the end of last year that it had already concluded. The disclosure of the document, which was initially expected before the Olympic Games in Beijing in February, has been delayed and the Geneva-based institution now points out that the High Commissioner will show it to the Chinese authorities during her visit to seek their opinion. and comments.
“It is not credible that the Chinese government is going to allow the high commissioner to see anything they do not want her to see, or let human rights defenders, victims and their families talk to her safely, unsupervised and without fear. to retaliation,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Bachelet’s legacy as High Commissioner will be measured by her willingness to hold a powerful state accountable for crimes against humanity perpetrated during her tenure.”
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