NGOs accuse Bachelet of lack of forcefulness towards China in her evaluation of her visit to Xinjiang

BEIJING, 29 May. (DPA/PE) -

Several international NGOs have accused the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, of lacking firmness in her criticism of China after her visit to the Xinjiang region, the scene, according to these organizations, as well as the United States, of a Beijing-led campaign of gross abuses against the Uyghur minority.

The Chinese government accuses the region's Uyghurs of promoting separatism, extremism and terrorism. Members of the Muslim minority say they are subject to political, religious and cultural oppression.

Bachelet's visit was "a catastrophic dereliction of duty", lamented Luke de Pulford, from the anti-slavery NGO Arise, after the high commissioner refused to describe her visit as an "investigation" into the situation in Xinjiang and limit itself to asking China to stop applying "arbitrary" measures against the population.

Bachelet refrained from directly criticizing China in her comments after her trip that included visits to the cities of Kashgar and Urumqi in the Xinjiang region, where human rights activists say hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other minorities have been locked up in "educational camps"

"The UN human rights chief seems to think she's so persuasive that she thinks a quiet backroom conversation will convince Beijing to ease its crackdown," said Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch. "(Bachelet) You can talk privately with China until your face turns blue, but Beijing will only respond to public pressure," he lamented on his Twitter account.

According to the World Uyghur Congress, which represents exiled Uyghur groups, "the visit has ended up being a propaganda opportunity for China to cover up its crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur people."

For his part, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made it known that the United States "remains concerned" about the visit and "China's efforts to restrict and manipulate it."

"While we continue to raise our concerns about China's human rights abuses directly with Beijing and support others who do so, we are concerned that the conditions imposed by the authorities on the visit did not allow for a full and independent assessment of the human rights environment. in Xinjiang, where genocide and crimes against humanity continue," he asserted.

Blinken also said that Bachelet "should have held confidential meetings with relatives of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority diaspora communities in Xinjiang who are not in detention centers but are prohibited from traveling outside the region."

"We also note that the high commissioner has not been allowed access to people who were part of the Xinjiang labor transfer program and who have been sent to other provinces in China," he added.

Bachelet spoke with top officials and gained unsupervised access to members of civil society and religious groups during her six-day trip.

It is the first official trip to China by a human rights commissioner in 17 years, and Bachelet's trip followed extensive exchanges with Beijing. Although she was invited to China in 2019, the government was initially reluctant to allow unsupervised access to people he wanted to talk to.