by Yew Lun Tian and Emma Farge
BEIJING/GENEVA, May 23 (Reuters) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, begins a visit to China on Monday, the first for a holder of the post since 2005, amid concerns let this trip serve to validate rather than examine the country’s human rights record.
During this six-day visit, Michelle Bachelet must go to the Xinjiang region, where her services said last year to suspect illegal detentions, mistreatment and forced labor of the Ughurs.
Beijing regularly denies accusations of abuse against this Muslim community.
“The purpose of this visit is to really focus on a dialogue with the Chinese authorities on a range of domestic, regional and global human rights issues,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. man upstream of this move.
Long negotiations were necessary on the conditions of a visit by Michelle Bachelet, who had expressed in 2018 her desire to be able to freely access Xinjiang.
China said the visit should not be made on the presumption of guilt.
We do not know precisely what will be the freedom of movement of Michelle Bachelet during this trip.
Human rights groups are concerned that a lax attitude towards China, during this visit and in the report that will follow, will be used by Beijing to justify its actions in Xinjiang.
The Ughur World Congress has sent a letter to Michelle Bachelet urging her to ensure that she and her team can travel freely in China, access all detention centers and speak unsupervised with Ughurs.
“We fear that this trip will do more harm than good. China could use it for propaganda purposes,” a spokeswoman for the organization, Zumretay Arkin, told Reuters.
Western powers and NGOs are denouncing widespread abuses against Ughurs and other Muslim communities in Xinjiang, including mass detentions, torture and forced labor. The United States accuses Beijing of genocide. (Report Yew Lun Tian; French version Jean Terzian)