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UN rights chief renews call for access to China’s Xinjiang
GENEVA, March 6, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The UN rights chief on Wednesday renewed
her request to access China’s Xinjiang region, where large numbers of the
Uighur ethnic minority are reportedly being held in re-education camps.
In her annual address to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Michelle
Bachelet said her office was seeking to “engage” with China on conditions in
Xinjiang.
She also re-issued her requests for “full access to carry out an
independent assessment of the continuing reports pointing to wide patterns of
enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly in the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”.
A UN panel of independent experts has said there are credible reports that
nearly one million Uighurs and other Turkic language-speaking minorities are
being held in Xinjiang.
Beijing at first denied the allegation, but later admitted putting people
into “vocational education centres”.
Xinjiang has long suffered from violent unrest, which China claims is
orchestrated by an organised “terrorist” movement seeking the region’s
independence. It has implemented a massive, high-tech security crackdown in
recent years.
But many Uighurs and Xinjiang experts say the violent episodes stem largely
from spontaneous outbursts of anger at Chinese cultural and religious
repression, and that Beijing plays up terrorism to justify tight control of
the resource-rich region.
Bachelet said she was confident that “stability and security in this region
can be facilitated by policies which demonstrate the authorities’ respect of
all people’s rights.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1855 hrs