Fri 20 May 2022:
According to her office, the UN human rights chief will begin her long-awaited journey to China on Monday, including a stop in the Xinjiang province, where authorities are accused of grave human rights breaches.
Michelle Bachelet will visit China’s far-western Xinjiang region next week, after years of asking “meaningful and unfettered” access.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “begins a six-day official mission to China on Monday, at the invitation of the government,” according to a statement released by her office on Friday.
It is the first trip to China by a UN rights chief since 2005 and Bachelet will meet “a number of high-level officials at the national and local levels”.
“The high commissioner will also meet with civil society organisations, business representatives, academics, and deliver a lecture to students at Guangzhou University,” the statement added.
An advance team was sent to China several weeks ago to prepare the visit, and has completed a lengthy quarantine in the country, currently in the grip of fresh Covid outbreaks.
Bachelet is not going to Beijing because of Covid restrictions, according to her office. She will not need to quarantine.
She will, however, visit Kashgar and Urumqi in Xinjiang, according to the report.
She will end the mission on May 28 with a press conference and a statement at an undisclosed location.
Bachelet has been urged to visit Xinjiang and share her office’s findings on the situation there for a long time.
China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang has been labeled “genocide” by the US government and lawmakers in a number of other Western countries, an accusation Beijing firmly denies.
Rights groups say at least one million mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in “re-education camps” in the region, and face widespread abuses, including forced sterilisation and forced labour.
China claims to be operating vocational training centers in the region to combat extremism.
The UN Human Rights Office said in March that an agreement had been reached on arranging a visit, but it is still unclear when Bachelet’s team will issue its long-awaited assessment on the situation.
Rights groups, diplomats, and others have expressed fear that Beijing will use her visit to manipulate her, and have increased calls for the report’s release.
However, a spokesperson for Bachelet indicated Tuesday that it would not be made public until after her travel, and that there was no clear timeline for doing so.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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